Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan

School of Business and Management

SY 2019-2020

MIDTERM CRITIC THOUGHT

PAPER

Submitted by:

Necky Sairah L. Yatan

HISTORY 1- BC

Submitted to:

Dr. Roel B. Absin

History Teacher

August 17, 2019

1
1899 Constitutions

We return to the original impulse that gave birth to the Filipino

nation

1899 Constitution or also called Malolos Constitution, the first

important Filipino document ever produced by the people's representatives

where it provided for safeguards against abuses and enumerated the

national and individual rights not only of the Filipinos and of the aliens . In

this critique we will be able to know the reason and its historical background

why it is implemented. Before it was implemented, Aguinaldo was

proclaimed the president of the Philippine Republic in Malolos . Aguinaldo

established the Dictatorial Government in May 1898 to show the capacity

of Filipinos for self-government, and a month later, the Revolutionary

Government. Different departments were created for the division of duties

of the new government. In September, the Congress was convoked at

Malolos and a constitution prepared to guide the government in its progress

toward political belief. December 1898 – Treaty of Paris, the United States

decided to take over the Philippines. Aguinaldo decided to establish a

Filipino government in the wake of his military triumphs. He had a draft of

a plan for the establishment of a revolutionary government. They establish

a dictatorial government in which could lead to a republican government

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like that of the United States. May 29, 1898, one of Aguinaldo’s 1st acts

as a dictator, urging the people to stop the disgraceful treatment of Spanish

prisoners. Aguinaldo issued another order on June 1, providing that all

classes of crimes were to be tried by competent military hearings and

turned it to the declaration of Independence Day, at Cavite el Viejo (Kawit)

on June 12, 1898.

June 18, 1898, provided for the reorganization of local government

in those provinces already freed from Spanish control. I refer to the 1899

Malolos Constitution, having been gained by blood and tears, as the most

authentic of all the constitutions that governed our country. The 1899

Constitution was parliamentary. Historians Teodoro Agoncillo and Cesar

Majul both point out that the debate between Felipe Calderon and Apolinario

Mabini on whether the new nation should have a strong legislature, or a

strong executive had a deeper, underlying conflict. The Malolos

Constitution is unique for three reasons: because of the provisions making

the Assembly or the legislative branch superior to either the executive or

the judicial branch, because it provided for a Permanent Commission to sit

as a legislative body when the Assembly was not in session, it established

a unicameral legislature. Calderon feared the predominance of the ignorant

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military elements which were solidly behind Aguinaldo. Calderon made

provision for the creation of a Permanent Commission, composed of

Assembly delegates, which would sit as a legislative body when the

Assembly was not in session. According to the editors of Shift, a

publication of the Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs in favor

of shifting to parliamentary government, Calderon favored a strong

legislative because he preferred an “oligarchy of intelligence” over an

“ignorant oligarchy”. Although Calderon won that debate, the question

continued to haunt Filipinos through the years and up to the present

because that Constitution was never enforced. Within days of the

ratification of the 1899 Constitution, the first important Filipino document

produced by people’s representatives, the Filipino American War broke out.

We must recover that past to animate the surge to full nationhood in our

time. If a constitution is the soul of a country, then the Malolos Constitution

embodied our finest hour as the first country in Asia to overthrow its

colonizers. The constitutions which followed, some four of them did not

have the same powerful symbolism for nationhood that 1899 evokes.

We now turn to the question of how we should improve the

Constitution by constituent assembly or by constitutional agreement.

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Constituent assembly has surged forward as the preferred mode as more

and more Filipinos find there is common sense in choosing the method

which enables us to immediately respond to changing times, cause the

least pain, the least delay and the least cost. Wholesale change is

appropriate only after the “overthrow of a dictatorship” and “the

establishment or restoration of democracy. That is not the situation we are

in now. We are improving on a good Constitution with some loose ends to

close because of the hurry in which it was drafted after the death of

Marcos’s rule. Before President Marcos declared Martial Law, a

Constitutional Convention was already in the process of deliberating on

amending or revising the 1935 Constitution. They finished their work and

submitted it to President Marcos on December 1, 1972. President Marcos

submitted it for ratification in early January of 1973. Foreseeing that a

direct ratification of the constitution was bound to fail, Marcos issued

Presidential Decree No. 86, s. 1972, creating citizens assemblies to ratify

the newly drafted constitution by means of a Viva Voce vote in place of

secret ballots. Marcos announced that it had been ratified and in full force

and effect on January 17, 1973. The crucial event in the run-up to

constitutional change through constituent assembly is the signing of the

social contract which will state exactly what civil society wants. most past

5
constitutional conventions were politicians and those who were not at the

time they were elected delegates eventually became politicians. Therefor

those who advocate constitutional convention are suppressing the very

reason why we are seeking change. To be elected in this country one must

have financial resources, a political base and machinery. To those who say

that we need a change in men not in institutions, it is not one or the other.

It is well known that we need change both in men and in institutions and

that is the ideal. According to experts, change happens either by changing

the behavior of the individual or changing the structures of the institutions

within which the individual is made to operate, or what is called institutional

change. We might ask: How we will change men and women in a political

system which demands lots of money or simple popularity as in movie star

popularity, to get elected? We can begin to change Filipinos by changing

the environment in which we conduct politics.

6
1935 Constitution

National freedom now stands before us as a shining light – the

freedom that for many years gleamed only a fitful candle in the distant

dark. We shall make ourselves ready to grasp the torch, so that no

predatory force may ever strike it from our hands. Although the 1935

constitution was not the first body of law to be created (the first one is the

Malolos constitution made by the then-revolutionary government), it was

the first to be fully effective throughout the Philippines. It was created with

the intent of gaining the approval of the United States government who at

the time was occupying the country. The thought was that without a

constitution of its own, the occupying US forces would be able to claim that

the Philippines is not politically developed enough and is unready for

independence. Thankfully, this constitution was certified by US President

Roosevelt on March 23, 1935 in conformity to the Tydings-MyDuffe act. In

May 14, 1935, it was ratified by the Filipino people through a plebiscite.

We have already gone through the process three times before but perhaps

not with as much divisiveness as now. The first time was in 1934-35 when

our leaders, under the leadership of Claro M. Recto, drafted the 1935

Constitution. The event was a much-awaited moment in our colonial

history when at last the Filipino people were allowed by the American

7
masters to draft their own Constitution. However, there was something in

the drafting of the Constitution which was later to rankle the feelings of

nationalist hearts, namely the fact that, before the work of the

Constitutional Convention could be presented to the Filipino people for

ratification, it had first to be presented to the President of the United States

for him to check whether the document conformed with the terms of the

authorization given by the United states Congress. It was partly this fact

which fed into the movement for a new Constitution by the late sixties.

According to the preamble of the 1935 Constitution or also called

Commonwealth of the Philippines, The Filipino people, imploring the aid of

Divine Providence, in order to establish a government that shall embody

their ideals, conserve and develop the patrimony of the nation, promote

the general welfare, and secure to themselves and their posterity the

blessings of independence under a regime of justice, liberty, and

democracy, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution. 1935 Constitution

was a great help especially to Senator Grace Poe where they questioned

her citizenship. The framers of the 1935 Constitution rejected the proposal

that children of unknown parents be considered natural-born Filipinos,

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said during the hearing of Senator

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Grace Poe's disqualification cases before the Supreme Court.

Poe questioned her disqualification before the SC after the Commission on

Elections in two separate rulings said that she committed material

misrepresentation when she said in her certificate of candidacy for

president that she was a natural-born Filipino.

While questioning Poe's lawyer Attorney Alexander Poblador, Carpio said

that the proceedings of the 1934 Constitutional Convention clearly showed

that the delegates voted to reject the proposal that children of unknown

parents be considered natural-born Filipinos.

Being a natural-born citizen is a requirement under the Constitution for one

to qualify to run for president. Poe is a foundling, who was found in 1968,

at the Jaro Cathedral in Iloilo. She was later adopted by celebrity couple

Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces. Under this Constitution it is stated,

“The following are citizens of the Philippines: (1) Those who are citizens of

the Philippine Islands at the time of the adoption of this Constitution . (2)

Those born in the Philippine Islands of foreign parents who, before the

adoption of this Constitution, had been elected to public office in the

Philippine Islands. (3) Those whose fathers are citizens of the Philippines.

(4) Those whose mothers are citizens of the Philippines and, upon reaching

the age of majority elect Philippine citizenship. (5) Those who are

9
naturalized in accordance with law.” In addition, the 1935 Constitution (as

well as the current one) states that the “Philippines adopts the generally

accepted principles of international law as part of the law of the Nation.”

Thus, by this “doctrine of incorporation,” customary international laws are

given the same force and effect as statutes passed by Congress.

The Constitution, whether written or unwritten is recognized as the

supreme law of the land as it serves as the basis for the legitimacy of any

governmental acts necessary for its existence. It is a codified law that

determines the powers and duties of a government and it embodies certain

rights of the people. Right after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in

Washington D.C in 1898 that ceded the Philippines to the US paying the

amount of $20, 000, 000 to Spain in the process, and the eruption of

Filipino-American War in 1899, our country was placed under a military

government until 1901 with the passing of the Spooner Amendment ,

putting an end to the military rule in the Philippines and replacing it with a

civil government with William H. Taft as the first civil governor. The

ratification of the Philippine Bill of 1902, which called for the creation of a

lower legislative branch composed of elected Filipino legislators, and the

Jones Law in August 1916 gave the Filipinos the opportunity to govern

10
themselves better. The First Philippine Assembly, which convened on

October 16, 1907, was composed of educated Filipinos from illustrious

clans such as Sergio Osmeña and Manuel L. Quezon, who revived the issue

of immediate independence for the Filipinos and this was expressed by

sending political missions to the US Congress.

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1972 Constitution

President Ferdinand E. Marcos marked Proclamation No. 1081 on

September 21, 1972, putting the Philippines under Martial Law . A few

sources state that Marcos marked the decree on September 17 or on

September 22 in any case, in either case, the archive itself was dated

September 21. All through the Martial Law time frame, Marcos developed

the faction of September 21, broadcasting it as National Thanksgiving Day

by ideals of Proclamation No. 1180 s. 1973 to memorialize the date as the

establishment day of his New Society. The publicity exertion was fruitful to

the point that up to the present, numerous Filipinos—especially the

individuals who did not live through the occasions of September 23 , 1972

work under the misunderstanding that military law was declared on

September 21, 1972. It was not. The perfection of a significant lot of

readiness. The actualities are clear. Seven days before the genuine

affirmation of Martial Law, various individuals had effectively gotten data

that Marcos had attracted up an arrangement to totally assume control over

the legislature and increase outright standard. Representative Benigno S.

Aquino Jr., during a September 13, 1972 benefit discourse, uncovered

what was known as "Oplan Sagittarius." The Senator said he had gotten a

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top-mystery military arrangement given by Marcos himself to put Metro

Manila and distant regions under the influence of the Philippine

Constabulary as a prelude to Martial Law. Marcos was going to utilize a

progression of bombings in Metro Manila, including the 1971 Plaza Miranda

bombarding, as a defense for his takeover and ensuing dictator rule. It can

be easily remembered that the proclamation of martial law in Mindanao was

triggered by a series of lawless and violent attacks highlighted by the

infamous Marawi Siege wherein the Maute Group, along with other rebel

groups, took up arms and committed public uprising in an attempt to

remove Mindanao starting with Marawi City from its allegiance to the duly

constituted government of the Philippines and deprive the President of his

power, authority, and prerogatives over the land. The proclamation

allowed our armed forces to conduct swift and effective operations which

ultimately led to the liberation of the City of Marawi in a few months’ time .

Since then, peace has been relatively restored. Trade and commerce

resumed; and investors regained their confidence in conducting business in

the island. The military has been performing its mandate of upholding our

sovereignty and protecting the people while respecting civilian authority

and human rights. Contrary to the fears of its detractors, there are no

abuses and the implementation of martial law has been generally peaceful.

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However, rebellion persists in other areas of Mindanao. Elements of the

Daesh or ISIS inspired remnants of the Dawlah Islamiyah group, as well as

members of the Abu Sayyaf, the Maguid and Turaifie Groups, to continue

their armed and violent uprising, posing a serious threat to the security

and safety of our brothers and sisters. This past year saw a string of

bombings in different areas of Mindanao, including South Cotabato and

Sultan Kudarat, causing death and injury to innocent people. These events,

along with other circumstances backed by credible intelligence reports and

data show that the rebellion still endures, and that public safety requires

the continued implementation of martial law. To be sure, this sentiment of

support is not the voice of only a single person. In fact, there is a huge

clamor from most, if not all, of Mindanaoans, including local chief

executives and district representatives, for the extension of martial law.

This only proves that the operation of martial law has brought positive

effects in the whole island. For the foregoing reasons, this representation

expresses his support for the extension of martial law in the whole of

Mindanao for the recommended period and we applaud President Duterte

for his will and decisiveness in bringing lasting peace and prosperity in

Mindanao.

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 Marcos signed Proclamation 1081 on September 21 , 1972; he cited

the communist threat as justification. His diary, meanwhile, said the

proclamation of Martial Law became a necessity, following the supposed

ambush of then defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile. There were

subsequent reports that said the ambush was staged, with the Official

Gazette citing Enrile's admission in 1986 that it was faked to justify the

imposition of Martial Law. There were also indications that the plan to

declare Martial Law had long been in the works. According to the Official

Gazette, several people had received prior information about Marcos' plan.

The late dictator had also hinted at it in his address to the Philippine Military

Academy Alumni Association as early as May 17, 1969 – more than 3 years

before the actual declaration. To family and supporters of the former

President Ferdinand Marcos, his declaration of martial law on September

23, 1972 (though he antedated the official document to September 21)

remains a watershed event that ushered in what some of them consider to

be the “golden age” of the Philippines. For example, his son, the former

Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., wrote a Facebook post on

September 21, 2012: “In 1973, our GDP growth rate stood at 8.9 percent

that took a dip the following year to below five percent as a result of the oil

15
embargo. Subsequently, it stayed above five percent through all the

succeeding years up to 1980 with a high of 8.8 percent in '76.” He

acknowledged GDP suffered a “negative growth” in 1984 but blamed it

largely on Senator Aquino’s assassination in August of 1983 and what

followed. Other Marcos supporters, arguing along the same line, point out

that the former president embarked on an unprecedented level of

infrastructure spending, building roads, bridges and other civil works

throughout the country. While it’s true that infrastructure spending surged

in the mid-1970s (as indicated by gross fixed capital formation), this was

accompanied by soaring external debt, which proved to be the bane of the

economy when the country can no longer pay for these in the 1980s. By

then, infrastructure spending plunged to its lowest levels, taking years to

recover. Economic growth followed the same pattern. It’s true, as former

Senator Marcos claims, that GDP growth surged to record levels in 1973

and 1976. However, the plunge to the worst-ever economic contraction in

1984 and 1985 wasn’t just caused by the Aquino assassination but , more

importantly, by the government’s inability to pay its mounting foreign

debts.

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1987 Constitution

In 1987, the second year of Corazon C. Aquino's presidency of the

Philippines, much of the enthusiasm that marked the February Revolution

vanished as the government faced one setback after another in earnestly

trying to address the problems inherited from decades of misrule. If much

acclaim attended President Aquino's challenge to Marcos during the snap

presidential elections and her rise to power in February 1986, much

criticism came her way in 1987 as she responded to the difficult task of

governing a country in transition from dictatorship to democracy amid

tremendous economic difficulties and continuing political instability.

Attempts to bring peace and economic prosperity to her troubled country

were blocked by extremists in and out of the government. Democratization

has also been hampered by sectors that stood to lose positions of privilege

and power. The past year in many ways may be viewed from the prism of

democratization, a process that is never easy and, in the case of the

Philippines, was complicated by the way the change from dictatorship to

democracy took place. This review of the Philippines in 1987 focuses on the

country's efforts to meet the challenges of democratization, for indeed this

appears to be the unstated theme of the February Revolution and the

overarching principle of the present government. Economic recovery is

17
certainly equally important, but it is sought preferably within a broad

democratic framework rather than under a dictatorship. Economic

prosperity would also make democratization more meaningful as ordinary

citizens would then be able to participate much more effectively and

substantively in the tasks of governance and decision making. Part one of

the article reviews the process of rebuilding democratic political

institutions; part two addresses the task of building the socioeconomic

foundations of meaningful democracy; part three discusses the pursuit of

peace by the government through an end to the twin insurgencies plaguing

the country. The 1987 Constitution is considered one of the most enduring

constitutions in the world because it has stood for 31 years without any

amendment. This is an odd quality considering that most constitutional

scholars will agree that a constitution is never infallible or immortal even

as they continue to debate among themselves the ideal lifespan of a nation-

state's charter. But none of these experts will ever deny that pathologies

in a constitution can emerge during its reign. These pertain to provisions

in the constitutional text itself that may have been designed with good

intentions but have eventually become debilitating to the political system it

purports to govern. Our very own 1987 Constitution is no exception . An

obvious one pertains to the quality of government the republic should have .

The Preamble is very explicit about the Filipinos' desire "to establish a

18
Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations." Of course, a

corollary of this goal is the intent "to prohibit political dynasties" in Section

26 of Article II. No need to elaborate here but the current government

framework certainly does not embody our ideals and aspirations while

traditional elites continue to have a firm chokehold on the country's political

system. These two unfortunate realities clearly point to an anomalous area

in the 1987 Constitution that begs to be addressed. the Constitution's

passionately nationalist stand concerning socioeconomic matters and its

avowed protectionism against foreign interests seems to project a partiality

for an expanded state. Yet in allocating governmental powers, a maze of

check and balance provisions have been instituted to form a shriveled

state. Essentially, the Constitution has established a schizophrenic state

which is once again a sad reality that clearly yearns for remedial action.

Obviously, diagnosing pathologies in our Constitution is a big task. And as

we have learned from the "economic" amendment’s debacle in 2015, mere

determinations from politicians and interest groups, no matter how well-

thought-of and presented, will not be credible enough for the public. The

reality is, in order to produce an accurate and truly legitimate result, the

charter change process demands the ardent participation of the people

themselves. Indeed, according to the United Nations Assistance to

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Constitution-making Processes (April 2009), "Constitution-making

presents moments of great opportunity to create a common vision of the

future of a state, the results of which can have profound and lasting impacts

on peace and stability. Therefore, it would benefit Filipinos immensely if

this charter change effort being pushed by President Rodrigo Duterte is

complemented by the process of identifying aspects of the 1987

Constitution that require remedial action. This task now belongs to the

Consultative Committee and the Department of the Interior and Local

Government .

So instead of undertaking a roadshow merely promoting the

Bayanihan Federalism draft proposal, they can carry out a genuine

widespread and substantial public consultation process wherein issues such

expanded regional autonomy for Mindanao and the Cordillera, regulation

of political dynasties, targeted economic liberalization, consolidation of

social safety nets, electoral reforms, and so forth, can all be exhaustively

threshed out by the people. The fact is, law schools are the only institutions

in the country where constitutional professionals, so to speak, are

produced. Their knowledge in constitutional reform forms part of legal

technology which they can share to the local communities where they

20
belong. Furthermore, these diagnostic sessions can be undertaken via the

barangay assembly apparatus. Admittedly, dissecting constitutional issues

pertaining to good governance, economic prosperity, liberal democracy,

and social justice does not exactly fall within the powers of the Barangay

Assembly under the Local Government Code (LGC). But this mechanism is

still the most convenient way to gather ordinary citizens and give them the

opportunity to speak out and be heard. After all, the LGC itself considers

the barangay as a forum wherein the collective views of the people may be

expressed, crystallized and considered. The massive undertaking can also

function as a condensed civic education program for local communities. I

anticipate that after undergoing this cathartic political exercise, Filipinos

will fully realize the magnitude of revising the 1987 Constitution .

Specifically, I expect they will get to understand that the proposal is to shift

from the unitary system, which is the way the country has been governed

for centuries, to a federal setup, which is a government system many of

us have paid attention to only when President Duterte assumed office two

years ago.

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The Politics of Agrarian Reform Program

TULOY ANG LABAN SA REPORMANG AGRARYO, KAHIT

PINALPAK NG GOBYERNO

Agrarian reform is the transformation of agrarian system including

land reform, redistribution of land, credit measures, land consolidation and

training. The cultivators and rural agricultural workers are the principal

beneficiaries of land reform. Agrarian reform primarily targets this class to

enhance their access to land. The focus of this agrarian reform program is

the political conditions for agrarian reform which influences the reduction

in poverty from the rural societies of the world. Political conditions also

influence the economic and social condition of a country. The political

conditions greatly influence agrarian reform in alleviating poverty from the

country. Different countries have different political structures. Political

conditions impel agrarian reform to channel into a new direction. Political

influence for agrarian reform varies according to the political structure of

the country. Some countries follow socialistic approach, while others follow

capitalist or communist approach. There are problems that the agrarian

reform is facing and one of which is the problems on installation and

positioning of the beneficiaries of agrarian reform to their land. According

22
to the group, in many parts of Mindanao and Luzon, farmers cannot occupy

their land due to titles being hidden in Department of Agrarian Reform

(DAR) offices. In the Visayas, landlords are using "delaying tactics" to

prevent farmers from occupying their land, despite land titles already in

the possession of the farmers. The group asked for a nationwide inventory

of installed and uninstalled Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) for a

better monitoring of the program. The main problem facing CARPER [the

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program] today is DAR’s lack of political

commitment to implementing land reform on all agricultural lands, as

provided by Article XII, Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution. DAR has every

possible legal tool to make agrarian reform work, including providing for

shortfalls in the issuance of Notices-of-Coverage to all lands targeted for

redistribution by June 30, 2014, so the far greater danger is DAR’s

apparent forgetting of its own constitutional mandate. DAR’s unwillingness

to effectively and rapidly complete the land reform program on all

agricultural lands will enable routine violations of the agrarian reform law

by allowing the 5-hectare retention limits set by CARPER to still to be

transgressed by landowners, while endangering small farmers all over the

country from finally owning the land they live on after June 30, 2014. The

completion of agrarian reform program is above all a matter of strong

23
political will, which has been sorely lacking in this administration’s DAR.

Instead of rationalizing its slow process of distribution, DAR should fast-

track the distribution of all farmlands in the country . Similarly, farmer-

leaders from SARA expressed dismay over DAR’s continual lack of political

commitment to promoting the rights of its farmer constituencies, as

manifested in its inaction on several reported legal and human rights

violations against rural communities. Hundreds of thousands of farmers are

now in danger of being denied the lands that have been promised to them

by President Aquino in his 2012 State of the Nation Address, because of

the consistently dismal record of DAR over the past years. As we can no

longer place hopes on DAR to fulfill its mandate, we are now trying to unify

as much of the farmers’ movement as we can in order to prevent the worst-

case scenario for CARP from materializing. According to Mr. Tadeo, We

have lost complete faith in the DAR leadership, and appeal to Malacanang

to release an executive order that will allow land reform to continue

past June 30, while spearheading an overhaul of the DAR bureaucracy. It

is time for President Aquino to become directly involved in the

implementation of CARP, if he truly wishes to bring ‘inclusive growth’ to the

rural poor. The future of CARP/ER appears grim: substantial headway

towards the full completion of the Philippine agrarian reform program has

24
yet to take place, five years after it was extended and reformed by the

CARPER Act. This fact has been firmly borne out by how the CARP record

of the Aquino government’s DAR and other CARP-implementing agencies

has remained at dismal and depressing levels. That reality has been the

outgrowth of a sustained neglect and incompetence of the current

administration, an indecisive and technicality-oriented DAR leadership, an

inhospitable neoliberal policy environment, and a President who cannot go

beyond his class interests. The groups vowed to continue and intensify the

fight for agrarian reform and social justice. The movement for agrarian

reform and rural development will continue to grow as farmers , workers,

women, and the youth look for other alternative avenues in the fight for

equity and justice. Among them include promotion of alternative models of

agricultural production for small farmers and food producers, of food

sovereignty and sustainability of the environment; protection of the rights

of workers in the food industry, commercial farms, and plantations;

campaigns for social protection, rural development, and industrialization;

and national youth alliance for agrarian reform and rural development and

“balik”-farm programs. The groups stressed that defending and protecting

agricultural lands will not only secure the land rights and lives of farmers

25
and food producers, it will secure the nation’s food needs. Agrarian reform

is everybody’s fight.

Farming organization also plays an important role behind the

implementation of agrarian reform. The political issues mainly stress on

agrarian classes to include new social forces on land-based inequality. The

most certain way to reduce poverty in rural societies of a country is the

reclamation of the property system. In the landlord-tenant system, the

landless are politically powerless and are dependent on landlords for

maintaining their livelihood. In agriculture, markets are still regulated by

political manipulation. The large landowners apply their political powers

while repaying their loans and tax obligations and most of the time fail to

fulfill their obligations. On the other hand, for the rural poor people of the

world, access to land is limited and at the same time they are unable to

access the land in an equitable manner.

Now more than ever, DAR must stop excusing itself for its dismal

performance, and simply back its pronouncements with decisive actions.

DAR often refers to technicalities to explain away its lack of achievements,

but it is duty-bound by the country’s highest law to give land to millions of

farmers still clinging to the dream of finally owning the land that they till.

26
Economic of Agrarian Reform

The Filipinos are confronted by a complex, persistent agrarian

problem characterized by low productivity of both land and labor engaged

in agriculture, concentration of land ownership and widespread absentee

landlordism, organization of agriculture into small size farms which, when

combined with concentration of land ownership has produced excessive

rates of tenancy in the densely populated provinces, and relatively high

land values. The urgency of the agrarian problem is reflected in the concern

expressed by Philippine statesmen for rural problems and the proliferation

of laws and institutions created to deal with various aspects of agrarian

reform. The topic of this paper is to define more precisely the problem and

concepts relevant to analysis of Philippine agrarian reform and to make a

preliminary appraisal of Philippine policy within a framework of

economically relevant concepts. An attempt to sort out the economic

ramifications of Philippine agrarian reform will be useful if it does no more

than contribute to mutual agreement of definition and problems. Crop

yields in the Philippines are among the lowest in the world. This experience

contrasts sharply with the productivity of cultivated land in such densely

populated and climatically divergent countries as Japan, Egypt, Java, and

northern Europe. The productivity of land engaged in agriculture will, other

27
things being equal, depend upon the amounts of other productive factors-

i.e., labor, capital, which are applied to land to produce the agricultural

output. The low yields of Philippine agricultural land are paradoxical when

related to the density of agricultural population. Three comments will have

to be made to dispose of this paradox for purposes of this paper. First, it

is obvious that comparisons of yields per unit of land are economically

relevant only if the areas compared are equivalent" in potential

productivity. This would require that the combination of soil fertility and

climatic factors including rainfall, sunshine, etc. not necessarily be identical

but capable of producing an equivalent output with the same inputs of labor

and capital. Second, the quantity of labor with which land cooperates to

produce crops is not measured by heads of population engaged in

agriculture but is highly dependent upon qualitative factors which affect

labor productivity. For example, if agricultural practices are tradition-

bound, because of political-social institutions such as education, tenancy

arrangements, etc., it could easily explain radical differences in yields from

equivalent amounts of land. Third, given equivalent "land" and "labor"

inputs, radical differences in productivity of land can also be explained by

differences in the amount of capital" with which the given amounts of land

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and labor cooperate to produce crops. For example,, in Japan, the yields

of agricultural land shown a remarkable secular increase during the past

fifty years, during which time agricultural population has tended to remain

relatively constant. It is generally recognized that the steady expansion of

land productivity in Japan reflects the expansion in capital inputs in the

form of fertilizer, irrigation, transportation facilities and—what may have

been the most productive of all capital outlays-agricultural experimentation

and research. Similarly, the economist would explain the existing

differences in the productivity of labor employed in agriculture in the

Philippines as compared to agricultural labor in countries of similar

population density, primarily in terms of the amounts of land and capital

with which labor works (co-operates) in the Philippines. The productivity of

Philippine agricultural labor is handicapped by cultural factors which limit

capital supplies in agriculture. The increasing pressure of population on the

land under cultivation has tended to produce a shift in the distribution of

the given product in favor of the owners of land capital—i.e., the hacienda

owners, which has supported a steady appreciation of land values in

densely populated, high tenancy areas. This in turn has led to the diversion

of savings (i.e., potential capital resources) to the bidding up of land values

rather than investment which would produce increments of output.

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Moreover, the cultural values attached to land ownership and the

conservatism of the family as the trustee of communal wealth has resulted

in an "irrational" attachment to wealth in the form of land, and the rationing

of limited supplies of capital to the acquisition of land rather than

investments more productive of agricultural output. The basic agrarian

problem of low productivity of Philippine agricultural resources is

aggravated by the relative weakness of the agricultural laborer/tenant in

the distribution of the agricultural product. As in other densely populated,

predominantly agricultural economics, the social marginal product of labor

(i.e., the product attributable to an additional unit of labor applied to the

present cultivated land) tends to be relatively low- approaching zero. It

should be pointed out also that the basic problems of the low productivity

of Philippine agricultural resources and the socially disturbing distribution

of the product of Philippine agriculture are separate and distinct problems

and that the solution to one may not necessarily contribute to the solution

of the other problem. With the basic marginal principle of product

distribution in mind, the economic elements of agrarian reform tend to

become intelligible. First, one can have agrarian reform measures designed

to strengthen the cultivator's claim to the product of agriculture . Agrarian

reform of this type reduces poverty in agriculture , not by increasing

30
agricultural output, but by introducing greater equality in the distribution

of the existing output.

The policy maker also must face the fact that political representation

in the Philippine reflects population quite closely and legislators are

notoriously unwilling to divert funds for social investment to areas where

investment tends to be most productive of output and most productive of

diffusion of land ownership are the weakest claimant to such investment

funds. It should be borne in mind that the increment of product which

results from social investment in agriculture will not go entirely to the labor

factor but will be distributed among the cooperating factors in accordance

with the marginal principle. To the extent that the agrarian problem is one

of excessive tenancy and poverty in agriculture, social investment will

alleviate this problem only slowly and frustratingly. On the other hand, if

the society is one in which land ownership is widely distributed , the gain

from additional supplies of social capital will be widely shared and the

problem of poverty in agriculture will tend to be directly reduced. Finally,

government economic activity and social investment in the Philippines is

taking place at a relatively low level.

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Cultural Aspects of Agrarian Reform

For many years, conflict between landowners and landless peasants

has been a major theme in Philippine life. The progressive and

humanitarian forces have supposedly been blocked by entrenched vested

interests. It seems to many that now that landlords are not as powerful as

they had been in the past, the time has come for a major redistribution of

land. Such reform is expected to ameliorate peasant grievances, bring

peace to the countryside, and make the dream of social justice a reality.

Its supporters believe that all that is needed is to prevent landlords from

blocking or sabotaging desirable rural changes. The burden of this article

is that such thinking overlooks both the problems brought about by rapid

population growth and the difficulty of replacing traditional rural social

adjustment with bureaucratic structures. The Philippine situation is not

comparable with that of other Asian countries. Furthermore, plans that

seemed wise in the past may be counterproductive today . However, land

reform has become an article of faith for many concerned citizens. Criticism

is hardly welcomed, but enthusiasm and blind faith are hardly a substitute

for critical social analysis. Since there have been several attempts to reform

Philippine agriculture, it may be helpful to look briefly at experience. The

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Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) is the most recent of

several attempts to change the ownership pattern of Philippine agriculture.

The first land reform dates to the early days of the American regime when

American officials purchased the "Friar" lands from the Roman Catholic

Church. These lands had, in many cases, been seized by Filipinos during

the insurrection against the Spanish Government and it seemed a

necessary step for domestic tranquility to free the lands for sale to the

peasants. The Friar lands proved to be difficult to sell in small farm units

and those which were sold tended to revert to the landlord tenant formula

again, the only difference being that Catholic friars were replaced by

secular landowners. It is the contention of this paper that more basic

factors limited the impact of past programmers and limit the potential

effectiveness of CARP. To understand the significance of cultural barriers

to land reform, let us look at some of the beliefs in the culture of those who

promote land reform. The basic precepts of land reformers are the

following: it is relatively easy to change rural Filipino culture from a

traditional formalistic pattern to an impersonal contractual system of

relationships, Credit provided by banks or credit unions promotes greater

equity for farmers while informal private lenders are basically usurers and

private agrobusiness is exploitative while co-operative buying and

marketing is the best means of getting reliable services at a reasonable

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cost. Often, when we think of culture, we talk of such items as food

preference, courtship customs, or clothing styles. However, attitudinal

postures may also be included. There are many definitions of culture. One

author several years ago enumerated 165 definitions. It resulted in an

actual decline in production. This production decline is attributed to both

the absence of the landlord's assistance and to a fragmentation of holdings.

In a landlord -tenant system, the number of tenants is presumably set at

the ratio which is most economical in terms of existing technology. If land

reform results in freezing the land man ratio at a level inappropriate to an

unproved technology, it is of doubtful utility. Landlords are basically

exploitative while government officials are committed to the common good.

This premises are basic to the promulgation of the idea that one can get

the benefits of expert management and large-scale operation without

accepting individual or corporate ownership of large tracts of land. The

Philippines has had experience with this type of situation in the compact

farm- so called because it consists of several smallholdings grouped in a

contiguous area for operation under the direction of a hired manager. Other

farms may have been more successful, but the pattern hardly seems one

designed to maximize peasant satisfaction. If the peasants do not see the

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advantages of this type of collective farming, which is often the case, then

they must be either bribed or coerced into participating. Efforts to improve

the lot of the peasants (the basic aim of land reform) have suffered because

of a misguided belief that it is easy to replace the traditional personal

pattern of rural life with impersonal contractual social patterns. They have

also run into trouble because of a belief that market forces can easily be

countered by administrative regulations. An alternative approach would

work with both traditional social forms and market forces to improve

peasant livelihood. This approach would minimize ideological

considerations in favor of pragmatic policies which have concrete results in

providing an improved peasant livelihood. These suggestions are extreme

heresy in terms of the usual ideology of those supporting land reform

programs, but they would save immense sums of government money and

offer a much better chance that such program would benefit the peasants

involved. Philippines and had drastically reduced the rate of population

growth. This meant less competition for available land and that displaced

persons could find industrial employment. What is sometimes overlooked

is that population growth has been so rapid that the rural labor force

continues to grow despite such internal migration. This means that the

pressure on the land, which is heavy now, will be still greater in the future.

35
There are two basic ways of managing such a problem. They are not

competitive but must work together. One is to curb population growth; the

other is to foster industrialization in rural areas. The family planning

programs which have been promoted by both government and private

agencies for several years have had only moderate effect and, currently,

the Philippine population doubles every twenty-seven years. Practically all

social classes and population groups in the Philippines are so committed to

a large family pattern that limited programs are inadequate . Probably

nothing can stabilize population short of a major commitment. This means

a population policy like that of China with the use of every method of

preventing births along with rewards for small families and penalties for

large ones. Such policies are difficult to sell, but the alternative is a city

population overwhelmed by the continued influx of squatters from rural

areas which, in turn, are growing so rapidly that the individual's share of

societal wealth is constantly diminished. As the same time that population

control is undertaken, it is necessary to promote industrialization,

preferably on a decentralized basis, to provide an alternative to farm

employment.

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Social Aspects of Agrarian Reform

Philippines and had drastically reduced the rate of population growth.

This meant less competition for available land and that displaced persons

could find industrial employment. Even in the 1950s, when the Philippine

population was a third of what it is in 1990, land reform would have been

difficult. Today's population pressure means that most peasants would

have to be left out of land redistribution and that industry would not be

able to provide jobs for rural migrants. Land reform is self-defeating unless

the recipients can be provided enough land for a family livelihood. How

much is considered enough varies, however. As Montemayor writes: The

actual size of a particular family -size farm will depend on such factors as

the topography of the land, the quality of the soil, the crop or crops to be

produced, the availability of water, the size of the farmer's household, and

so on. In the case of lands principally devoted to rice or corn, the family -

size farm is set by law at five hectares if unirrigated and three hectares if

irrigated. However, in many cases, individually operated farms of this size

are rare, and fragmentation is constantly making them smaller. Even forty

years ago when the population was less than a third of what it is today ,

this was a problem. When large estates were parceled out to tenants, it

37
was found that the tenants themselves had divided and subdivided the and

they were supposedly tilling so that distribution to all claimants meant

parcels of less than a hectare each. Since the average CLT awarded during

the Marcos program was only 1.68 hectares per recipient, it is obvious that

population pressure makes it very difficult to provide a farm of satisfactory

size for those previously of tenant status. Only a few years ago,

uncultivated land still existed in the Philippines and expanding the area

under cultivation was a problem of applying enough capital and labor to

bring the land into production. Today, the shortage of land is absolute. It

is no longer true that natural resources are plentiful in the Philippines. It is

now hardly possible to provide land to the landless without taking it away

from others. After generations of population pressure, the amount of

unoccupied public land available for distribution is no longer significant . It

is merely the law, which labels as "squatters" those land worker -occupants

who happen to be without land documents. Resettlement on the public

domain is no longer a significant option as it was, to some extent, in the

Magsaysay era a generation ago. Land reform rules attempt to restrict the

sale of land in order to prevent either land fragmentation or new

concentrations from occurring, but this is as if ordering water to flow uphill.

A growing rural population and a fixed area of land make it inevitable that

38
land prices will rise and that some of the occupants will sell — either to

those desperate for even a small plot of land or to bigger operators seeking

larger areas to cultivate. In either case, the land reform ideal of the family

size farm is in danger. Fegan's description of how the process of covert

acquisition works in central Luzon probably applies to other parts of the

country as well: Since the reform laws forbid any open market in farm

rights, restrict transfer of tenancy rights, and limit the land purchase rights

to inheritance by one first degree kinsman, a covert market has developed.

In this, entrepreneurs are prepared to offer a good price for rights in low

risk land. Commonly, they do so through lending against the usufruct,

tenancy or land purchase right at rates reflecting the security of the right.

In some variants, the lender allows the borrower to stay on the farm as a

share tenant, while he takes half the crop less the rent to the owner . In

others, the borrower works the farm, under supervision, as a farmhand

receiving a fixed fee.

Landowner resistance is one of the most well-known issues in

agrarian reform. We know about high-profile cases of violence and constant

threats against agrarian reform beneficiaries to keep them from occupying

the land, or where landowners stall the land acquisition and distribution

39
process through various methods, which, while not high-profile, are just

as problematic. Some of these methods include filing of cases against

farmers and even Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) personnel, legal

measures to bog down the land acquisition and distribution in almost every

step of the way, and subdividing their land to relatives to take advantage

of the 5-hectare retention area, while not losing the land altogether.

Advertisement Then there’s the individualization of collective certificate of

land ownership award (CLOA). These were issued during the 1990s to fast-

track land distribution, especially in sugarcane plantations. However, while

collective titles show the total area owned by farmers collectively, they

don’t delineate individual lots. Not only does this create boundary disputes

among agrarian reform beneficiaries, it spawns to inheritance and issues

of conflicting claims. There are even cases when the collective titles don’t

have an annexed list of farmers, resulting to claims that cannot be easily

validated.

Property rights cannot be altogether secured if the farmers are not

able to complete paying their land amortization. Most of them have not

even started. This is because, by policy, Landbank cannot receive

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amortization payments from landholdings with survey discrepancies, or in

collectively titled landholdings, pending for subdivision. The DAR convened

the 2018 National Summit of CARP Stakeholders last January 25-26 in

Clark, Pampanga. Acknowledging these issues, DAR expressed its

commitment to ensure that inputs from the invited organizations would be

incorporated in their strategic plan. But the question is: how can the call

for more aggressive CARP implementation fit within a federal context? If

the implementation of agrarian reform will be through the states, as what

can be assumed from the system of government being proposed , then

agrarian reform may not be implemented at all in powerful landowner

states. The future of agrarian reform is unclear. While close coordination

between CARP implementing agencies and stakeholders promises an

effective method of case resolution, it can only go so far. With no end in

sight for these issues, hopefully something positive will come out from the

initiatives of the agrarian reform beneficiaries, civil society, and members

of the government.

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