NAME: Gian Rose M.

Medenilla
PROGRAM/SECTION: BSAIS 1

Agrarian Reform on Aquino and Ramos Administration

According to Republic Act No. 6657 Section 2, the agrarian reform program is founded on the
right of the farmers and regular farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands
they till or, in the case of other farm workers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. Also, this Act
shall be known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988. Agrarian reform is viewed as
necessary condition for agricultural modernization and rural industrialization and mooring for global
competition (Moreno and Leones,2011). At this point, I will be going to summarize the different
contributions of Former Presidents Corazon C. Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos regarding to this topic, the
agrarian reform.

Under Former President Corazon C. Aquino provides under Section 21 under Article II that “The
state shall promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform”. As of June 10, 1988,
Republic Act No. 6657 also known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) was signed
and became effective on July 15, 1988. On the other hand, the Former President dreamt to increase
agricultural activity, improving rural incomes, and to make agriculture the spearhead of economic
development. On 1988, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was implemented to promote social justice
and industrialization providing different mechanism for its implementation and for other purposes. It is
also said that this law is still the one being implemented at present. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law
is one of the biggest of the former President. The objectives of the said law were to provide land owner
beneficiaries to have equitable land ownership, to increase agricultural production and productivity; to
employ more agricultural workers such as farmers to end land ownership conflicts. However, her
intentions are good and pure, she was heavily criticized for some reason. She came from a family of land
owners in Tarlac. Under Proclamation No. 131, July 22, 1987, it was instituted the CARP as the major
program of the government and as it was the major program, Php 50 billion was allotted as an initial
amount to cover the estimated cost of the program from 1987 to 1992. On the other hand, the
administration under Former President Fidel V. Ramos, focused on accelerating the direct land transfer
and non-transfer programs through adopting more rational and simpler operation procedures and a fair,
expeditious as well as an inexpensive settlement of agrarian disputes. Also, as soon as he took over the
title, he speeded the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of the
former President Corazon Aquino in order to meet the ten- year frame. In 1992, the government acquired
and distributed 382 hectares of land with nearly a quarter of a million farmer beneficiaries. One major
problem his administration conquer was when there’s no longer enough funds to support and implement
the program. The Php 50 million, allotted by R.A No. 6657 to support the program was no longer
sufficient. To solve the said problem, former President Fidel V. Ramos signed R.A. No. 8532 on
February23, 1998 to amend the CARL which further strengthened by CARP by extending the program to
another ten years- a few months before the end of Ramos’ term.

In the end, Aquino and Ramos administration really benefits those people in many terms
especially when we were having conflicts regarding to land ownership. The Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Programs sought to redistribute land not only to farmers and farm workers but also to those
people whom landless and experiencing extreme poverty.