Module 6

Topic: Agrarian Reform Policies

Source: Colledo, Jose N. (1991). Principles of Agrarian Reforms, Cooperatives and
Taxation. 16th and Revised Edition. National Book Store, Inc.

Readings in Philippine History (Readphi)

Agrarian Situation in the Philippines

In the Philippines, the poor situation of the peasants, before adoption of various
Government reforms and even up to the present time, is described by Erich Jacoby
in the following words:

“The life of the Filipino peasant is determined by the rigidity of the tenure system.
The annual cash income of the average tenant holding of 2 hectares be it in the rice
or sugar regions, is hardly enough to cover the mere subsistence of the tenant and
his family... ”.
• Mr. Francis B. Sayre, America’s last High Commissioner to the Philippines
before the war, made these amazingly true statements:

“The bulk of the newly created income went to the Government, to the landlords and to urban
areas, and served but little to ameliorate living conditions among the almost feudal peasantry
and tenantry.”

• Mr. Jacoby observed that “in hundreds of bloody uprisings, the Philippine
peasantry rebelled against oppression and the final revolution against
Spain…can be interpreted largely as agrarian rebellion by the distressed
tenants on the large estates of the Church.”
History of Agrarian Efforts in our Country

Spanish Regime (1880 and 1894)

• Royal decrees were issued encouraging land owners to secure titles to their lands.
However, only some few affluent persons got titles to their lands which in many
cases were taken from illiterate farmers.

American Regime
• Church-owned agricultural properties were bought by the Government beginning
1903 under the so-called Friar Land Purchase and subsequently distributed to the
farm cultivators.
• 1933: the Philippine Legislature passed Act 4054, the Philippine Rice Share
Tenancy Act which regulated the relationship between tenants in rice-producing
areas and the landlords.

• Commonwealth period: Provisions on social justice, expropriation of landholdings

and protection to labor were embodied in the 1935 Constitution.

• Commonwealth Act No. 178 – was passed amending the former Rice Share
Tenancy Act

• Commonwealth Act No. 461 – was enacted, which protected from dismissal share
tenants
Japanese Occupation
• Hukbalahap (People’s Anti-Japanese Army)
- was formed in the Central Luzon region
- also took up the cause of the peasants against the landlords

Establishment of the Philippine Republic in 1946

• Republic Act 34 – regulated rice share tenancy contracts
• Agricultural Tenancy Act – extensively defined the rights and duties of
landlords and tenants on all classes of lands, rentals on landholdings and
ordered a more equitable division of the produce of lands under share
tenancies
President Ramon Magsaysay
• Republic Act 1400 (Land Reform Act of 1955) – established the Land
Tenure Administration as the machinery for the acquisition and
redistribution of private agricultural lands.

President Diosdado Macapagal

• Land Reform Code was passed by the Congress
• Share tenancy was abolished; leasehold tenancy was adopted preparatory
to owner-cultivatorship.

President Ferdinand Marcos

• Land-to-the-tiller program – was designed to liberate the tenants from the
bondage of the soil.
Republic Act 6389

• introduced revolutionary changes in the Land Reform Code, which is now

known as the Code of Agrarian Reforms, such as:
1) automatic conversion of agricultural share tenancy into agricultural
leasehold subject to minimal exceptions;
2) creation of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
3) crediting rental as amortization payment
4) involving local governments in land reform
President Corazon Aquino’s agrarian reform program
• Proclamation No. 131 – instituted a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP) to cover all public and private agricultural lands

1987 Constitution
• Provisions on social justice of the 1987 Constitution cover agrarian and urban
land reforms.