LAND TITLES

Know what are the modes of acquiring titles

1. Title by public grant – conveyance of public land by government to a private individual
2. Title by acquisitive prescription – open, continuous, exclusive, notorious possession of
a property
3. Title by accretion – alluvium
4. Title by reclamation – filling of submerged land by deliberate act and reclaiming title
thereto; government
5. Title by voluntary transfer – private grant; voluntary execution of deed of conveyance
6. Title by involuntary alienation – no consent from owner of land; forcible acquisition by
state
7. Title by descent or devise – hereditary succession to the estate of deceased owner
8. Title by emancipation patent or grant – for purpose of ameliorating sad plight of tenant-
farmers; not transferable except by hereditary succession

What is all about Torrens System. Know its advantages and Purpose
The purpose of the Torrens system is to provide certainty of title to land.

Torrens Title is a South Australian invention that revolutionised the method of recording and
registering land ownership. It is a system where land ownership occurs when the document that
transfers ownership of the property is filed at the local Land Titles Office. The purpose of the
Torrens system is to provide certainty of title to land.

The Torrens Title System was first introduced in SA in 1858 and subsequently used in other
Australian states and around the world. Torrens Title is named after its inventor, Sir Robert
Richard Torrens, who was instrumental in the implementation of this unique and efficient system
of dealing with land. The system resulted from Sir Torrens' desire to improve on the old English
land law system which was very complex, time consuming and expensive.

The main object of the Torrens Title System is to make the register conclusive. Once your name
is registered on the Torrens Title register, you become the owner of the property to the exclusion
of all others. You therefore obtain ‘title by registration', which is a pivotal concept of Torrens Title.

Under the system, a Certificate of Title exists for every separate piece of land. The certificate
contains a reference that includes a volume and folio number, ownership details, easements
and/or rights of way affecting the land and any encumbrances including mortgages, leases and
other interests in the land.

Torrens Title is useful because it eliminates grounds for most dispute litigation, avoids the
consequences of lost certificates and greatly reduces the costs of land sale and transfer. People
can change the Torrens Register through lodging and registering a ‘dealing'.

Normally, the person who is recorded as the owner of a parcel of land cannot have their title
challenged or overturned. This concept is known as 'indefeasibility' of title. There are, however, a
few exceptions to this general rule such as if the land was registered fraudulently.

What are the basic laws to bring lands under the operation of the system
http://www.chanrobles.com/presidentialdecrees/presidentialdecreeno1529.html#.WzQ7FtIzaF4

AGRARIAN

Be able to know what is an agrarian conflict

Introduction
It was a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in April 1994 when Pablito Dante, a farmer leader
of the Pecuaria Development Cooperative Inc. (PDCI), decided to go home after attending a
short meeting of the cooperative's board of directors. That afternoon they had discussed the
merits of the solution proposed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on how the
800-ha land could be divided between their cooperative and another group, the Federation
of Free Farmers (FFF), who were also making claims on the land. Pablito argued that they
had prior right to the land; after all, the FFF were really just settlers who came from another
part of the province.
While walking back to his farm, Pablito was stabbed to death by some members of the FFF.
This incident almost ignited a violent confrontation between the two groups that would have
cost more lives. The government stepped in immediately and handed down its decision. The
PDCI was awarded 700 ha, while FFF was given 100 ha. Today the two groups live in
peaceful coexistence, but it has been at the expense of Pablito Dante's life.

This incident is an example of numerous agrarian-related land conflict problems in the

Philippines. It demonstrates how the absence of conflict resolution mechanisms leads to
violent and undesirable consequences. The main premise of this article is that land conflict
is influenced by the prevailing agrarian situation. In the Philippines, land conflict stems from
a condition where land reform is being implemented, albeit slowly and with much difficulty.
The second major premise is that civil society groups play an important role in facilitating the
resolution of land conflicts. The next few sections will attempt to examine the relationship of
land conflict with the agrarian reform situation.

Agrarian reform and land conflict

The core of agrarian reform is change. It is change resulting from the transfer of ownership
from landowner to landless farmer, change from being formerly landless to being an owner
cultivator, and change from being powerless to being empowered. Its very nature, therefore,
easily becomes a source of resistance, dispute, controversy and conflict.

In the case of the Philippines, agrarian reform is being implemented by the state as a social
justice measure to change the prevailing situation of unjust and inequitable ownership of land
and resources by a few individuals in society. For hundreds of years, from the Spanish
occupation of the Philippines in the 1500s to the present, agricultural lands have been in the
possession of a few powerful landlords and corporations. The majority of people have
remained as tenants, farm workers and landless agricultural labourers, a factor that has
contributed to the poverty in the countryside. Land conflict stems mainly from agrarian
disputes brought about by the prevailing agrarian situation.

Hayami, Quisumbing and Adriano (1990)1 relate three major sources of agrarian unrest in
the Philippines to the social transformations that occurred in the evolution of the Philippine
agrarian structures. First, the emergence of agrarian institutions in the Central Luzon and
Southern Tagalog regions in the Philippines represent disputes between tenants and
landlords. Second, the development of the sugar industry in Luzon, based on tenanted
haciendas, and then Negros Islands, based on centrally managed haciendas employing hired
labour, represent confrontations between wage labourers and hacendero planters in
traditional plantations. Third, the emergence of modern plantations and commercial farms in
the southern island of Mindanao represents confrontation between wage labourers and
corporate management in modern agribusiness plantations.

Agrarian conflict in tenanted lands

Landownership was communal in pre-Hispanic Philippine society. Land was owned by
the barangay (village) and individuals had rights to use the land and make it productive. The
Spaniards introduced private ownership through the granting of legal titles. Thus began the
accumulation of land by indigenous elite groups in connivance with the Spanish authorities.
Landlordism proliferated in the Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog regions, where the main
crops planted were rice and coconut.

The transformation of smallholders to tenants was aided by the usurious and oppressive
practices of landlords. Hans Bobek (1962)2 calls "rent capitalism" what arises from the
commercialization of a feudal economy in such a way that the original claims of the
aristocracy upon peasant services are transferred into more explicitly profit-seeking
obligations. According to Bobek, "it is an absolute ideal of the rent capitalist to get as many
peasants as possible into debt so permanently that with all their yearly payments they can
never liquidate the initial debt, which soon becomes legendary." Being deeply mired in debt,
therefore, has become a condition of tenancy and has added stress to the already strenuous
landlord-tenant relationship.

It is not surprising that the early government land reform programmes from 1933 to 1972
were designed to address tenancy regulations and redistribute lands in the tenanted rice and
maize areas. Yet, after almost 30 years of Marcos' Operation Land Transfer (OLT, in 1972),
which sought to emancipate the tenant from the bondage of the soil, there still remain a
sizeable number of tenanted farms that have not been placed under land reform.
Approximately 50 000 ha, half of which are considered problematic, are still targeted for
distribution from an original scope of more than 600 000 ha (DAR, Land Acquisition and
Distribution Status as of 31 July 2001).

A more recent source of tension and conflict in OLT areas is the growing number of
cancellations of emancipation patents or land reform titles under the OLT programme.
Organized peasant groups have criticized the DAR for what it calls "land reversion" because
the DAR bodies adjudicating the petitions made by the former landlords were cancelling land
titles already given to farmers. The farmer who has been given the title has legal recourse to
object to the cancellation. In most cases, farmers who have access to legal or paralegal
support have better chances of winning their cases. Otherwise, the landlords are able to use
their money and power to get their lands back.

Agrarian conflict in sugar haciendas

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), ratified by President Corazon
Aquino in 1988, was hailed as an important piece of legislation because it went beyond the
scope of previous land reform programmes by including in its coverage the acquisition and
distribution of all private agricultural land regardless of the crop produced. Finally, there was
hope that the thousands of hectares of land planted to sugar under the hacienda system that
had been in existence since the time of Spanish occupation would be given to thousands of
poor landless workers. But more than ten years after the implementation of CARP, the sugar
haciendas, especially in the Negros Islands, have barely been touched. These haciendas
continue to be the last bastion of feudalism in the Philippines.

The sugar industry in the Philippines employs more than half a million workers. The Spanish
introduced sugar in the 1500s through the encomienda system, whereby lands were
awarded by the colonial government to the church (friar lands) and to the local elite. The
industry developed further when the Americans came and opened up trade with the United
States. Sugar was booming until 1985, when a crisis hit the industry, the price of sugar went
down and the Americans cancelled the sugar quota. Most hacienda owners were forced to
sell or mortgage their properties or convert their farms to other commercial uses. However,
for several years these planters had enjoyed accumulating profits that were then channelled
to other investments. The hardest hit by the crisis were the farm workers, who belong,
together with agricultural labourers in the sugar haciendas, to the poorest of the poor in the
Philippines.

To illustrate the gravity of the slow-paced implementation of agrarian reform in the sugar
haciendas in the Negros Islands, a report3 from the Regional Director of the Department of
Agrarian Reform to the Under-secretary for Operations shows that, as of September 1999,
in Negros Occidental alone, more than 90 000 ha of lands measuring 50 ha and larger had
still not been distributed to farm workers.

Furthermore, in the same report, a section entitled "Problematics" refers to properties

undergoing difficulties in terms of proceeding with the land reform process. These
"problematic" lands constitute about 10 000 of the 90 000 ha. Hence, these problems are the
causes of various forms of land conflict. For instance, problems relating to land that is subject
to applications for exclusion and exemption from land reform, or applications for the
conversion of land from agricultural to commercial and industrial uses, or where the landlord
has protested against the coverage of his or her farm under the agrarian reform programme
often lead to conflict between the landlord and the farm workers. The farm workers react to
attempts by the landlord to evade the land reform programme. They counter these attempts
by filing legal opposition with the DAR. The landlord retaliates by dismissing from the farm
those workers who have signed up under the agrarian reform programme or filed opposition
to his or her application for exemption and conversion. The dismissed farm workers then file
complaints with the Department of Labour for illegal dismissal. Organized farm workers have
the advantage of providing safety nets for fellow workers who have been illegally dismissed.
They also have the advantage of extralegal action to force the government to act in their
favour. However, farm workers who do not have access to organized action can become
easy prey to recruitment by communist insurgents advocating armed struggle against the
government.
 The conflict in the sugar areas is such that the DAR has hundreds of cases docketed in its
adjudication bodies. The case study on Task Force Mapalad, presented below, demonstrates
how organized farm workers have used extralegal methods to achieve social justice through
agrarian reform.

Agrarian conflict in commercial farms and plantations

Mindanao, the southernmost part of the Philippines, is home to thousands of hectares of
commercial farms and modern plantations. These farms are planted mainly to bananas,
pineapples and rubber. Corporations such as Del Monte, Dole and B.F. Goodrich operate in
the area. Although Philippine law prohibits landownership by foreign companies, these
corporations have gained control over lands through lease arrangements or through local
Philippine companies. A more recent phenomenon is a leaseback arrangement in which
farmer beneficiaries of the agrarian reform programme surrender to the multinational
corporation the use of their farm for a period of 10-15 years. In exchange, they are given
cash advances equivalent to five years of the annual lease rate. This offer is especially
attractive to farmers in need of cash.

The majority of conflict cases in commercial farms emanate from labour relations. Farm wage
labourers are usually organized into labour unions that deal with the agribusiness
corporations. Thus the most common issues include, among others, the provision of
mandated wages and benefits, observance of fair labour practices and ensuring occupational
safety.

Agrarian conflict and the legal system

Agrarian reform in the Philippines has a fundamental legal mandate. It is embodied in the
1986 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines, which also emphasizes the importance
of agrarian reform as a social justice programme that must be given priority by the
government.

On 10 June 1988, President Corazon Aquino ratified Republic Act 6657, otherwise known as
the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). This law is considered to be an
improvement over the earlier agrarian laws primarily because it covers all agricultural lands
regardless of the crops produced.

The plight of farmers within the legal system was tackled in the first alternative law conference
organized by the Alternative Law Group Network and the University of the Philippines College
of Law.4 The conference identified three major problems obstructing the administration of
justice through agrarian reform. These are: acute ignorance of the agrarian reform law by the
legal system's key institutions; a muddled agrarian reform policy climate; and a bureaucracy
that seems ill-prepared to carry out its mandated task.

An article in the conference proceedings, "Stalled: the legal struggles of farmers for agrarian
reform", cites several cases where judges or justices have made comments and voiced
opinions that show ignorance of the law. One example cited is that of a justice of the Second
Division of the Court of Appeals who expressed surprise that a cooperative was eligible to
become a beneficiary of the agrarian reform programme.

Even though Section 50 of RA 6657 clearly confirms that agrarian cases fall under the
jurisdiction of the DAR, this has also proved to be as a contentious issue. Conflicts emanate
from the filing of agrarian cases in the regular courts by landlords who naturally feel that they
have better chances in the municipal or regional trial courts than with the adjudication bodies
of the DAR, which are perceived, correctly or mistakenly, as biased towards farmers. The
conflicts escalate when the regular courts entertain the cases, sometimes even issuing
injunction orders against the DAR, instead of dismissing the cases at the onset.

The following sections focus on the response of civil society groups, in particular non-
governmental organizations (NGOs) and farmers' organizations, to the situation of land
conflict.

How do you know whether there is an agricultural activity

What are lots covered by the agrarian Reform Program
http://www.dar.gov.ph/about-us/agrarian-reform-history