AGRARIAN REFORM AND LEGISLATION IN THE
PHILPPINES
HISTORICAL LEGACY
Pre Spanish Era
o No system of land ownership
o Social system determined the land
system
o Population was sparse mainly on
coast and rivers, no large farms.
Production crops for long distance
trade.
 Introduction of private property on lands
o ‘All lands except those officially
proved to be private or communal
possessions belonged to the Spanish
crown’
o end of the colonial period the Church
owned much of the best lands in the
Philippines ( Putzel 1992)
o 18th century- opening to exports of
tropical products.
o Decline of Galleon trade, opening of
new shipping routes with shipping
 Example: British and Dutch
India companies
 Effects of foreign demands over tropical
agricultural products
o Induced demands for agricultural
lands
o Newly demands for lands in turn
migration of peasants from old
seacoast and river towns into the
interiors
o Late 18th Century- Chinese mestizo
traders.
o PACTO DE RETROVENTA-
Expanded their land holding by
purchase. Foreclosure on debt
o From traditional elite (casique)
and also inter-marring further
with them to form a group of
rural elite (principalia)
o Monastic orders lease their idle lands
to agricultural entrepreneurs/
middleman (Inquilino) who in turned
sub-rented the lands to share tenants
2 original sources
1. Educated Chinese
2. Spanish Mestisos
o On the one hand, the cacique and
traditional elite who were descendants of
datu-turned-colonial administrators
American Era
o US administration purchased about 90%
of Friar estates.
o 7 million in 1905- redistribute the estate
to 60,000 share tenants
o Purchased by oligarchy and inquilinos
rather than by landless tenants
o Land titling- introduced in 1902 created
great windows of opportunity for land-
grabbing by the same group of elite.
o Combination of colonial rule by the
Spanish and American led to:
o Process of land acquisition by the
elite, through loyal land grants,
land grabbing and privileged
access to legal formalities
o Creating a “system of property
rights which tends to appear
arbitrary to peasants in the
barrios)
o Access to the US market under the
American colonial rule provided
additional economic opportunities for the
landowning Filipino elite
 AGRARIAN REFORM AND LEGISLATION
o Spanish rule
Reform and
Legislation Effects
Encomienda Abuse of power
System
Emergence of Rise of Cacique
Barrio and Class
Municipios
The 1894 decree Peasants were
left without land
titles.
American rule
Procedure:
o Purchase of Friar Lands
o Homesteading
o Rice Share tenancy Act of 1993
 SAKDALISA MOVEMENT
o brief peasant rebellion in the agricultural
area of central  Luzon,  Philippines, on the
night of May 2–3, 1935. Though quickly
crushed, the revolt of the Sakdals (or
Sakdalistas) warned of Filipino peasant
frustration with the oppressive land
tenancy situation.
o Expropriation and subdivision of big landed
estates and their resale at cost and on
installment to landless tillers.
o Reduced the limit to 75 ha.
o Operated only to declared land reform area
 Main loophole of the reform as it was
used by landlords to circumvent the
law.
o R.A 3844 amended R.A no. 6839
 Abolishion of personal cultivation and
conversion to residential subdivision as
grounds for the ejectments of tenants.

 Automatic conversion of all share-

 Japanese Occupation tenants in the Philippines to leasehold
o Rise of Hukbong Magpapalaya sa tenants with some exceptions and
Bayan (HUKBALAHAP) qualifications

 Post-War Period  Creation of the Department of

 President Manuel Roxas Agrarian Reform (DAR)
o Rice Share Tenancy Act 1933
o RA. No. 34 of 1946  Right of the tenant on land converted
o (70:30 crop sharing arrangement and to residential subdivisions to demand a
regulating share tenancy contracts DISTURBANCE COMPENSATION
equivalent to five times the average
gross harvest for the past three
 Ramon Magsaysay agricultural years.
o Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954 (RA
1199, amended by RA. No 2263)
 Increase financing for the land reform
o Tenant farmer could receive a
program
maximum of 70% of the crop.  Crediting of rentals in favor of the
tenant against the just compensation
that he would have to pay in case the
1. Land 30%
land was expropriated by the
2. Labor 30%
government for resale to the tenant.
3. Animals 5%
4. Implements 5%
5. Final Harrowing 5%  Ferdinand Marcos (Martial Law)
6. Transplanting 25% o P.D No. 2- proclaimed the entire
100%. Philippines as land reform area.

o Decreed that tenants should be given 3

o Establishment of the Agricultural Tenancy
Commission
o Court of Agrarian Relations- settle
satisfactorily and promptly all tenancy
disputes
 National Resettlement and Rehabilitation
Administration (NARRA)
 Diosdado Macapagal
o Agricultural Land Reform Code (R.A
No. 3844)
o It sought to abolish and outlaw share
tenancy and put in place the
agricultural LEASEHOLD system
hectares of irrigated rice or corn lands
and 5 hectares, if not irrigated
o Department of Agrarian Reform
(DAR)- was created to expedite the
TRANSFER of land titles to the
peasants
o PD NO. 27- “Emancipating the tenant-
farmers from the bondage of the soil”
 Tenant farmers in all private
agricultural lands primarily
devoted to rice and corn were
deemed owners of they were
tilling
o Initiated a resettlement program which
farmers without lands were resettled in
agricultural owned by the government.

 Corazon Aquino
o Proclamation No. 131
 Instituting a Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program
(CARP)

o Executive Order No. 229

 Providing mechanism neede
initially to implement CARP

o Executive Order No. 129-A

 Reorganizing and strengthening
the DAR and for other purposes

o Executive Order No. 228
 Declaring to full land
ownership to qualified farmer
beneficiaries covered by P.D
No. 27; determining the value
of remaining unvalued rice and
corn lands subject to P.D No.
27
 Providing the manner of the
payment by the farmer
beneficiary and mode of
compensation to the landowner
 At Present
o Republic Act No. 6657
 Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Law (CARL)