The Ongoing Peasant Revolution

I. History

             a. During Spanish Period

             b. During American Period

II. Communist Party of the Philippines - New People's Army

             a. Evolution of the Past

             b. Major Armed Groups

                     *CPP-NPA-NDFP

                     *MILF-BIAF

             c. Peace Talks

III. A semicolonial and Semifeudal Society

• Feudalism

               1. Meaning of Feudalism

               2. Political Power of the Landlord Class

                      *Classes in the Philippine Society

                                        a. Landlord Class

                                        b. Bourgeoisie

                                        c. Peasantry

                                        d. Proletariat

IV. Land Reforms

               *Different Administrations

                         a. Magsaysay Administration

                         b. Macapagal Administration

                         c. Marcos Administration

                         d. Corazon Aquino Administration

                         e. Ramos Administration

                         f. Arroyo Administration

V. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program 

SPANISH REVOLUTION

             The kind of society that developed in more than three centuries of Spanish rule was colonial and feudal. It was a society basically ruled by the landlord class, which included the Spanish colonial officials. The Catholic religious orders and the local puppet chiefs. The masses of the people were kept to the status of serfs and even the freemen became dispossessed.

             It was in 1570 that the Spanish colonialists started to integrate the barangays that they had subjugated into larger administrative and economic units called the encomiendas. Wide areas of land, the encomiendas were awarded as royal grants to the colonial officials and Catholic religious orders in exchange for their “meritorious services” in the conquest of the native people. The encomienda system of local administration would be phased out in the 17th century when the organization of regular provinces was already possible and after it had served to establish the large-scale private landownership of the colonialists.

             Under the guise of looking after the spiritual welfare of the people, the encomenderos collected tribute, enforced corvee labor and conscripted native soldiers. They arbitrarily extended the territorial scope of their royal grants, usurped ownership over the lands previously developed by the people and put more land to cultivation by employing corvee labor. It was convenient for the colonialists to convert into agricultural lands the clearing made from the forests as a result of the timber-cutting necessitated by various construction projects.

             In the classic fashion of feudalism, the union of church and state suffused the entire colonial structure. All colonial subjects fell under friar control from birth until death. The pulpit and the confessional box were expertly used for colonial propaganda and espionage, respectively. The catechetical schools were used to poison the minds of the children against their own country. The Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas was established as early as 1611 but its enrolment was limited to Spaniards and creoles until the second half of the 19th century. The colonial bureaucracy did not find any need for natives in the higher professions. Among the masses, the friars propagated a bigoted culture that was obsessed with novenas, prayerbooks, hagiographies, scapularies, the passion play, the anti-Muslim moro-moro and pompous religious feasts and processions. The friars had burned and destroyed the artifacts of precolonial culture as the handiwork of the devil and assimilated only those things of the indigenous culture which they could use to facilitate colonial and medieval indoctrination.

             Throughout the Spanish colonial regime, revolts broke out sporadically all over the archipelago against the tribute, corvee labor, commercial monopolies, excessive land rent, landgrabbing, imposition of the Catholic faith, arbitrary rules and other cruel practices of the colonial rulers, both lay and clerical. There were at least 200 revolts of uneven scope and duration. These grew with cumulative strength to create a great revolutionary tradition among the Filipino people.

             In the 18th century, the anti-colonial revolts of the people increasingly took the character of conscious opposition to feudalism. Previously, the hardships and torment of corvee labor were the frequent causes of revolt. The arbitrary expansion of friar estates through fraudulent surveys and also the arbitrary raising of land rent inflamed the people, especially in Central Luzon and Southern Luzon. Matienza led a revolt outrightly against the agrarian abuses of the Jesuits who had rampantly grabbed land from the people. This revolt spread from Lian and Nasugbu, Batangas to the neighboring provinces of Laguna, Cavite and Rizal. In other provinces of the archipelago outside of Central Luzon and Southern Luzon, revolt came to be more often sparked by the monopolistic and confiscatory practices of the colonial government towards the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century. In 1807, the Ilocanos revolted against the wine monopoly. Once more they rose up in 1814 in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte and killed several landlords.

             In quelling all the revolts precedent to the Philippine Revolution of 1896, the Spanish colonialist conscripted large numbers of peasants to fight their own brothers. Military conscription thus became a major form of oppression as the development of revolts became rapid and widespread.

SOURCE: Philippine Society and Revolution by Amado Guerrero

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

         The United States of America took possession of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War in 1898 and after putting down the subsequent rebellion in the Philippine-American War. The Second Philippine Commission, the Taft Commission, viewed economic development as one of its top three goals.

         In 1901 , 93% of the islands' land area was held by the government and William Howard Taft, Governor-General of the Philippines, argued for a liberal policy so that a good portion could be sold off to American investors.

         1902 Land Act, set a limit of 16 hectares of land to be sold or leased to American individuals and 1,024 hectares to American corporations. Further, U.S. Federal Government faced the problem of much of the private land being owned by the Roman Catholic Church and controlled by the Spanish clerics.

          In 1902 Philippine Organic Act was a constitution for the Insular government. This act, among others actions, disestablished the Catholic Church as the state religion. The church agreed to sell the friars' estates and promised gradual substitution of Filipino and other non-Spanish priests for the friars. It refused, however, to withdraw the religious orders from the islands immediately, partly to avoid offending Spain. In 1904 the administration bought for $7.2 million the major part of the friars' holdings, amounting to some 166,000 hectares (410,000 acres), of which one-half was in the vicinity of Manila. The land was eventually resold to Filipinos, some of them tenants but the majority of them estate owners.

Commonwealth Period

            Tenant Farmers complained about the sharecropping system, as well as by the dramatic increase in  population which added economic pressure to the tenant farmers' families. As a result, an agrarian reform program was initiated by the Commonwealth. However, success of the program was hampered by ongoing clashes between tenants and landowners.

             An example of these clashes includes one initiated by Benigno Ramos through Sakdalista movement, which advocated tax reductions, land reforms, the breakup of the large estates or haciendas, and the severing of American ties. The uprising, which occured in Central Luzon in May, 1935, claimed about a hundred lives.

Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933

             This was implemented by President Manuel L. Quezon. The purpose of this act was to regulate the share-tenancy contracts by establishing minimum standards. Primarily, the Act provided for better tenant-landlord relationship, a 50-50 sharing the crop, regulation of interest to 10% per agricultural year, and a safeguard against arbitrary dismissal by the landlord. Since landowners usually controlled such councils, no province ever asked that the law be applied. Therefore, Quezon ordered that the act be mandatory in all Central Luzon provinces. However, contracts were good only for one year. By simply refusing the renew their contracts, landlords were able to ejects tenants. As a result, peasant organizations agitated in vain for a law that would make the contract automatically renewable for as long as the tenants fulfilled their obligations.

             In 1936, this Act was amended to get rid of its loophole, but the landlords made its application relative and not absolute. Consequently, it was never carried out in spite of its good intentions. In fact, by 1939, thousands of peasants in Central Luzon were being threatened with wholesale eviction. By early 1940s, thousands of tenants in Central Luzon were ejected from their farmlands and the rural conflict was more acute than ever.

             Therefore, during the Commonwealth period, agrarian problems persisted. This motivated the government to incorporate a cardinal principle on social justice in the 1935 Constitution. Dictated by the social justice program of the government, expropriation of landed estates and other landholdings commenced. Likewise, the National Land Settlement Administration (NSLA) began an orderly settlement of public agricultural lands. At the outbreak of the Second World War, major settlement areas containing more than 65,000 hectares were already established.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_the_Philippines

Communist Party of the Philippines

History

             The Communist Party of the Philippines was established for the first time in Manila on November 7, 1930, by Crisanto Evangelista, the most outstanding leader of the Philippine trade union movement in his time. The establishment of the Party marked the initial attempt to integrate the theory of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of the Philippines; and draw the most advanced activists of the worker and peasant movement into the vanguard party of the Philippine revolution. The leadership and membership came mainly from the worker's ranks. A few months afterwards, on May 1, 1931, a workers' rally organized by the Party in Manila was disrupted by the armed agents of the US colonial and local reactionary authorities. The CPP leaders were arrested and hailed to court on the charge of sedition. In 1932, they were convicted and sentenced to internal exile; and the Party was declared illegal by the Supreme Court of the US colonial regime.

             Despite illegalization and difficulties in working underground, the Party continued to exist and work among the workers and peasants in limited areas in the country. In 1932, the Social Party of the Philippines (SPP) was organized independently of the CPP by COmrade Pedro Abad Santos and was able to develop the peasant movement on a scale larger than the CPP could in Central Luzon, a region adjoining Manila. In 1937, the CPP was legalized by the Commonwealth government as a result of the mounting popular demand for social justice amidst worldwide depression and for a broad popular front against fascism. In 1938, the CPP and SPP merged into one party.

             At the onset of the 1960's, the CPP-SPP merger party was practically nonexistent. The general secretary had been reduced to issuing occasional "political transmissions" on the basis of newspaper clippings and without the benefit of collective discussion. Encouraged by the reemergence of the revolutionary mass movement among the youth, workers and peasants, Jesus Lava first invited Amado Guerrero in late 1962 and then a trade union leader in early 1963 to join the Executive Committe that he formed to function as the highest executive organ of the CPP-SPP merger party. Before Jesus Lava surrendered to the reactionary government in 1964, he appointed four secretaries of the CPP-SPP merger party: pedro Taruc, for peasants; the trade union leader, for workers; Amado Guerrero, for youth; and one Lava nephew, for professionals.

             As early as 1964, Amado Guerrero proposed a summing up of the experience of the party since 1930. By decision of the Executive Committe, he was assigned to write a general report, which he promptly submitted in 1966. However, cadres led by Amado Guerrero conducted theoretical studies, promoted the line of national democratic revolution, formed secret party units in localities and mass organizations and stepped up the building of the legal mass organizations. The CPP was reestablished on December 26, 1969, coinciding with the 75th birthday of Mao Zedong, the Chinese communist leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Amado Guerrero then a central committe member of Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas or PKP-1930, lead the reestablihed of the party. Jose Maria Sison, allegedly the man behind the nom de guerre Amado Guerrero, confirmed where the CPP's "Congress of Reestablishment" was held on December 26, 1968, at a hut near the house of the Navarettes, the parents-in-law of Arthur Garcia, one of the CPP founders.

            The reestablishment was centered on a comprehensive and thorough going criticism and repudiation of modern revisionism and the Lava revisionist renegades in Manila as well as the Taruc-Sumulong gangster clique. Soon after its reestablished, the Party linked up with the other cadres and commanders of the HMB and engaged them in ideological and political studies, mass work and politico-military training. On March 29, 1969, the New People's Army was established and on April 24, 1973 the National Democratic Front (Philippines). The reestablishment was considered by the party as the First Great Rectification Movement, criticizing the errors of the old party.

             The CPP was established as early as 1930. But because it was seriously afflicted by bourgeois subjectivism in ideology, oppurtunism in politics and violations of democratic centralism in its organizational life, it did not only fail to carry out its revolutionary tasks despite extremely favorable objective conditions at certain periods, especially during the period of the anti-fascist struggle and thereafter, but it also failed to preserve  itself substantially for the almost two decades that immediately preceded its reestablishment on December 26, 1968. That was mainly because the counterrevolutionary line of the Lavas and Tarcus prevailed within the Party until it was repudiated by a rectification movement inspired by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought. The old Communist Party did not only fail to seize  power but it also failed to preserve itself for further waging revolutionary armed struggle. The CPP adheres to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its guiding ideology in analyzing and summing up the experience of the party and its creative application to concrete conditions in the Philippines in fighting US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. It considers Maoism as the highest development of Marxism-Leninism. It considers the Philippine society as semicolonial and semifeudal, the character of the present revolution as national democratic of the new type (led by the proletariat), the motive forces, the targets, the strategy and tactics and the socialist perspective of the Philippine revolution.

The Major Armed Groups

             The major revolutionary armed groups in the Philippines of the CPP-NPP-NDFP and MILF-BIAF both assert continuity with long histories of armed struggle in the country that go back not just decades but centuries. The radical change they espouse through armed struggle reflects the historical conditions of colonization, poverty, inequality and marginalization whose effects are still being endured by significant sectors of the Philippine population: landless peasants, exploited workersand marginalized Muslims. Each claims to be the instruments of the liberation struggles of their respective declared constituencies.

The Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP)

             These culminated in the Katipunan-led Philippine Revolution in 1896. However, efforts to realize an independent Philippine nation were thwarted by the intervention and colonization of an ascendant and expansionist United States (US). The current armed struggle of the CPP-NPA-NDFP claims continuity with this narrative of struggle. According to Amado Guerrero, founding CPP chairperson, the democratic demand of agrarian reform and the nationalist demand to free the nation from neocolonial rule remain necessary to redress enduring conditions of exploitation and oppression. The CPP was founded in Tarlac province, Central Luzon on December 26, 1968 (the CPP also uses the term "re-establishment" to emphasize its repudiation of the earlier PKP).

             The NPA in turn was established on March 29, 1969 with less than 60 fighters and only 34 firearms, just nine of which were high-powered rifles. It appears that recent years have seen the resurgence of the revolutionary left. The NPA identifies three strategic phases in its armed struggle: defensive, stalement and offensive. In early 2006 it reported "approaching and developing the middle phase of the strategic defensive" as well as " operating in more than 120 guerilla fronts, which cover 800 municipalities in 70 out of 79 Philippine provinces". 3 public statements of defense officials and military officers of NPA strength tend to vary and estimates over the period 2001-2005 ranged from some 8,000 to 11,000 troops armed with 6,000 to 8,000 highpowered rifles.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front-Bangsamoro Islamic Auxiliary Force (MILF-BIAF)

             At the turn of the last century, while the nationalist intelligentsia and disaffected peasants and workers in the islands of Luzon and the Visayas fought the struggle for liberation against Spain, Muslim dominated Mindanao remained independent of colonial rule. Three-and-a-half centuries of Spanish colonialism's "Sword and Cross" strategy had failed to thoroughly colonize the islands, and Muslim resistance particularly in the Sultanates of Maguindanao and Sulu remained strong. Moro warriors and their families succesfully frustrated Spanish attempts to subdue them and the colonizers were restricted to limited enclaves of heavily fortified Spanish garrisons in the northern coastlines of Mindanao. The MILF's struggle today claims the legacy of protecting the ancestral domains of the Moro sultanates.

SOURCE: Uncounted Lives, 2006

Peace Talks

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

            Former government peace negotiator and now 1-BAP party-list Representative Silvestre Bello urged the government to resume its peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF. While President Benigno Aquino III asked Congress to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law by 2014, he failed to mention the administration's peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF, Bello said.

             Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate, for his part, said there should be no preconditions when both sides return to the negotiating table.

             "Time is of the essence. End the prolonged impasse. Resume the talks, now," read a joint statement by eight major peace networks in the country that is accompanying the process between government and the Nation Democratic Front (NDF). The special track, which involves talks on a proposal for alliance and truce, is parallel and complementary to the regular track. This is done between CPP founding chair Jose Maria Sison and presidential adviser for political affairs Ronald Llamas. Earlier, presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Quintos-Deles noted that some of the NDF consultants who were released in the past went back to the New People's Army.

             Talks under the special track also stalled since February this year as the parties failed to agree on a joint declaration on, among others, upholding national sovereignty, and the need for genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization.

             "We have confidence that simultaneous discussions on both tracks can mutually enhance the prospects of reaching constructive agreements," the peace activists said. The on-and-off negotiation between government and the NDF is guided by The Hague Joint Declaration that sets the four substantive agenda of the talks. These are respect for human rights; social and economic reforms; political and constitutional reforms; and end of hostilities and disposition of forces. The military estimates the rebels now have about 4,000 fighters, down from a peak of roughly 26,000 in the 1980's.

             President Benigno Aquino had been aiming to end the rebellion before his six-year term expires in 2016, but the government said in April that peace talks had collapsed. The government blamed repeated demands by the NPA for comrades to be released from jail, as well as frequent attacks, for the failure of the talks.

             The CPP Philippines today maintains its leadership in the revolutionary armed struggle and in the national united front. Since its reestablishment, it has heroically and correctly upheld the great red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought and the leadership of the Filipino proletariat in the Philippine Revolution. U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism can no longer ride roughshod over the Filipino people without being isolated and hit back by an invincible revolutionary mass movement of workers, peasants, students, intellectuals and all other patriots.

Feudalism

             Feudalism is a system of structuring  society around relationship s derived from the holding of land in exchange for labor or services. We shall say that capitalism developed already from imperialist society particularly in England and transformed the nature of imperialism, in some ways making it brutal and exploitative. 

             On reaching the stage of imperialism, capitalism as a world historical phenomenon has become moribund , parasitic and decadent. US imperalism exports its surplus capital to its colonies and semi colonies not to raise the economy of these to the level of the capitalist development but merely to extract superprofits by exploiting cheap local labor and drawing out cheap raw materials. Only to some very limited extent will US  enterprises be set up to process on the spot certain raw material available locally. The extent and quality of US monopoly capital injected into the Philippine  economy since the beginning of the 20th century. Feudalism is a mode of production in which the principal forces of production are the peasants and the land which they till and the relations of production are basically characterized by landlord oppression and exploitation of the peasantry.

Imperialism

             Imperialism is a policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by establishment  of economic and political hegemony over other nations. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In order for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and indusrial cartels produces finance capitalism.

             Finance capitalism is the exportation  and investment of capitalism to countries with under developed economies. Therefore imperalism is the highest stage of capitalism requiring monopolies and exportation of finance capital to sustain colonialism. Imperialism persists in violating the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and in strangulating Philippine independence. Before and after the grant of nominal independence, US imperialism made sure that it would continue to control the Philippine economy, politics, culture, military and foreign relations. It has extorted unequal treaties and one-sided privileges that transgress the national sovereignty, territorial integrity and national patrimony of the Filipino people. US imperialism continues to arrogate unto itself the privilege of giving armed protection to the local exploiting classes. Though there is now the illusion that the present government is self-determining, its basic policies and the election and appointment of its highest officials are mainly determined by US imperialism. The clearest evidence that the Philippines is still the colony of United States consists of economic enclaves lorded over by US enterprises and also of huge US military bases. These colonial enclaves can be removed only by means of an armed national revolution to assert the Philippine independence.

• Feudalism refers to the political system composed of three key concepts of lord, vassal, and fiefs. These three elements fit together through their obligations and relations. A lord granted land to his vassals. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord.

             Composed of a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among warrior nobility. There were different levels of lordship and vassalge. In a typical feudal society, the ownership of all land was vested in the king. Servicing him was the hierarchy of nobles, the most important nobles holding land directly from the king and lesser from them, down to the seigneur who held a single manor.

             The political economy of the system was local and agricultural, and at its base was the manorial system. Peasants, laborers(or sefs) held the land they worked from the seigneur. Seigneur is the one who granted them to use the land and his protection in return for personal services and for dues.

             Feudalism rose at a time when central government were weak or nonexistent in Europe. in the absence of strong monarchy and rule of law, the feudal relationship between the lord and his vassal was the glue that held medieval society together. Kings used the system to exert control over their subjects and secure military strength throughout their lands. Feudalism was not the "dominant" form of political organization in medieval Europe. There was no "heirarchical system" of lords and vassals engaged in a structured agreement to provide military defense. There was no "subinfeudation" leading up to the king.

The Bourgeoisie

The bourgeoisie in the Philippines society is composed of three strata:

Comparador Big Bourgeoisie

Middle Bourgeoisie

Petty Bourgeoisie

The Comprador Big Bourgeoisie

             They link the international bourgeoisie with the feudal forces in the countryside and has profited most from trade relations with the United States and other imperialist countries, esp. Japan at present moment.

             Wealth in the Philippines today is concentrated in the hands of only fifty big comprador landlord families.

Among the biggest representatives of the comprador big bourgeoisie are the Sorianos, Ayalas, Zobels, Elizaldes, Aranetas, Lopezes, Ortigases, Yutivos, Roxas-Chuas, Cojuangcos, Montelibanos, etc.

Managers, big corporation lawyers, big accountants, labour dealers and highly paid reactionary publicists are in the category of comprador bourgeoisie.

Middle Bourgeoisie or National Bourgeoisie

             It is the middle stratum between the comprador big bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. It is composed of businessmen in town and country who are interested in nationalist industrialization. They represent the capitalist relations of production in the country.

The Petty Bourgeoisie

             The petty bourgeoisie is the lowest and most sizable stratum of the local bourgeoisie. It includes the vast majority of the intelligentsia like teachers, student youth, low-income professionals, office clerks and lower government officials, fishermen and relatively well-paid skilled workers.

The Peasantry

             Peasantry is distinguished from all other classes by the fact that all its members cultivate the land. It is 75% of the entire Philippine population.

It has three strata:

- rich peasants

- middle peasants

- poor peasants

The Rich Peasants

             Also called the Rural Bourgeoisie. Comprise about 5% of the rural population. They as a rule own the land that they till and have surplus land besides. Otherwise, they own only part of the land and rent the remainder or they do not own the land at all but rent a sizable amount of land.

The Middle Peasants

             Is also known as Rural Petty bourgeoisie. They comprise about 15-20% of the rural population. They as a rule own land that more or less allows them to be self-sufficient. Otherwise, they own only part of the land and rent the remainder or they do not own land at all and rent all of it.

There are three levels of the middle peasants:

- upper level

- middle level

- lower level

The Poor Peasants

             They are about 75-80% of the rural population. They are included in the category of semi-proletariat. They as a rule own no land and serve as tenants of feudal lords.

The Proletariat

             It refers principally to the industrial workers and secondarily to other wage-earners. It is a class that is dispossessed of any means of production and has to sell its labour power to the capitalist owners of the means of production. It includes about 15% of the total manpower in the country. It ranges in number from 1.8 million to 2.0 million.

The Semi-Proletariat

             They are found mostly in towns and urban areas. There are those who have only their simple implements like the small handicraftsmen, carpenters and masons, small photographer, ambulant repairmen and poor fishermen.

The Lumpen Proletariat

             The stratum is composed of the drugs of Philippine society. It is composed of thieves, robbers, gangsters, beggars and prostitutes and all other elements who resort to anti-social acts to make a living.

Different Administrations

Ramon Magsaysay administration

             As further aid to the rural people, the President Established the Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Administration (ACCFA). The idea was for this entity to make available rural credits. Records show that it did grant, in this wise, almost ten million dollars. This administration body next devoted its attention to cooperative marketing.To amplify and stabilize the functions of the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR), President Ramon Magsaysay worked for the establishment of the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA). This body took over from the EDCOR and helped in the giving some sixty five thousand acres to three thousand indigent families for settlement purposes. Again, it allocated some other twenty five thousand to a little more than one thousand five hundred landless families, who subsequently became farmers.

             Along this line of help to the rural areas, President Magsaysay initiated in all earnestness the artesian wells campaign. A group-movement known as the Liberty Wells Association was formed and in record time managed to raise a considerable sum for the construction of as many artesian wells as possible. The socio-economic value of the same could not be gainsaid and the people were profuse in their gratitude.

             Finally, vast irrigation projects, as well as enhancement of the Ambuklao Power plant and other similar ones, went along way towards bringing to reality the rural improvement program advocated by President Magsaysay.

President Ramón Magsaysay enacted the following laws as part of his Agrarian Reform Program:

• Republic Act No. 1160 of 1954—Abolished the LASEDECO and established the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) to resettle dissidents and landless farmers. It was particularly aimed at rebel returnees providing home lots and farmlands in Palawan and Mindanao.

• Republic Act No. 1199 (Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954) – governed the relationship between landowners and tenant farmers by organizing share-tenancy and leasehold system. The law provided the security of tenure of tenants. It also created the Court of Agrarian Relations.

• Republic Act No. 1400 (Land Reform Act of 1955) – Created the Land Tenure Administration (LTA) which was responsible for the acquisition and distribution of large tenanted rice and corn lands over 200 hectares for individuals and 600 hectares for corporations.

• Republic Act No. 821 (Creation of Agricultural Credit Cooperative Financing Administration) – Provided small farmers and share tenants loans with low interest rates of six to eight percent.

Macapagal Administration

Land Reform Code

             The Agricultural Land Reform Code (RA 3844) was a major Philippine Land Reform law enacted in 1963 under President Diosdado Macapagal.

Marcos administration

             On September 10, 1971, President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed the Code of Agrarian Reform of the Philippines into law which established the Department of Agrarian Reform, effectively replacing the Land Authority. In 1978, the DAR was renamed the Ministry of Agrarian Reform. On July 26, 1987, following the People Power Revolution, the department was re-organized through Executive Order (EO) No. 129-A. In 1988, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law created the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Corazon Aquino administration

             President Aquino envisioned agrarian and land reform as the centerpiece of her administration's social legislative agenda. However, her family background and social class as a privileged daughter of a wealthy and landed clan became a lightning rod of criticisms against her land reform agenda. On February 22, 1987, three weeks after the resounding ratification of the 1987 Constitution, agrarian workers and farmers marched to the historic Mendiola Street near the Malacañan palace to demand genuine land reform from Aquino's administration. However, the march turned violent when Marine forces fired at farmers who tried to go beyond the designated demarcation line set by the police. As a result, 12 farmers were killed and 19 were injured in this incident now known as the Mendiola Massacre. This incident led some prominent members of the Aquino Cabinet to resign their government posts.

             In response to calls for agrarian reform, President Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 on July 22, 1987, which outlined her land reform program, which included sugar lands. In 1988, with the backing of Aquino, the new Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act No. 6657, more popularly known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law." The law paved the way for the redistribution of agricultural lands to tenant-farmers from landowners, who were paid in exchange by the government through just compensation but were also allowed to retain not more than five hectares of land. However, corporate landowners were also allowed under the law to "voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity or participation in favor of their workers or other qualified beneficiaries", in lieu of turning over their land to the government for redistribution. Despite the flaws in the law, the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality in 1989, declaring that the implementation of the comprehensive agrarian reform program (CARP) provided by the said law, was "a revolutionary kind of expropriation."

             Despite the implementation of CARP, Aquino was not spared from the controversies that eventually centered on Hacienda Luicita, a 6,453-hectare estate located in the Province of Tarlac, which she, together with her siblings inherited from her father Jose Cojuangco (Don Pepe). Critics argued that Aquino bowed to pressure from relatives by allowing stock redistribution under Executive Order 229. Instead of land distribution, Hacienda Luicita reorganized itself into a corporation and distributed stock. As such, ownership of agricultural portions of the hacienda were transferred to the corporation, which in turn, gave its shares of stocks to farmers.

             The arrangement remained in force until 2006, when the Department of Agrarian Reform revoked the stock distribution scheme adopted in Hacienda Luisita, and ordered instead the redistribution of a large portion of the property to the tenant-farmers. The Department stepped into the controversy when in 2004, violence erupted over the retrenchment of workers in the Hacienda, eventually leaving seven people dead.

Ramos Administration

             President Fidel V. Ramos speeded the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of former President Corazon Aquino in order to meet the ten-year time frame. However, there were constraints such as the need to firm up the database and geographic focus, generate funding support, strengthen inter-agency cooperation, and mobilize implementation partners, like the non-government organizations, local governments, and the business community. In 1992, the government acquired and distributed 382 hectares of land with nearly a quarter of a million farmer-beneficiaries. This constituted 41% of all land titles distributed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) during the last thirty years. But by the end of 1996, the DAR had distributed only 58.25% of the total area it was supposed to cover. From January to December 1997, the DAR distributed 206,612 hectares. That year, since 1987, the DAR had distributed a total of 2.66 million hectares which benefited almost 1.8 million tenant-farmers.

             One major problem that the Ramos administration faced was the lack of funds to support and implement the program. The Php50 million, alloted by R.A. No. 6657 to finance the CARP from 1988 to 1998, was no longer sufficient to support the program. To address this problem, Ramos signed R.A. No. 8532 to amend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) which further strengthened the CARP by extending the program to another ten years. Ramos signed this law on February 23, 1998 - a few months before the end of Ramos' term.

Arroyo administration

             On September 27, 2004, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, signed Executive Order No. 364, and the Department of Agrarian Reform was renamed to Department of Land Reform. This EO also broadened the scope of the department, making it responsible for all land reform in the country. It also placed the Philippine Commission on Urban Poor (PCUP) under its supervision and control. Recognition of the ownership of ancestral domain by indigenous peoples also became the responsibility of this new department, under the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

             On August 23, 2005, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed Executive Order No. 456 and renamed the Department of Land Reform back to Department of Agrarian Reform, since "the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law goes beyond just land reform but includes the totality of all factors and support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries."

             When President Nonoy Aquino took office, there was a renewed push to compete the agrarian reform. The Department of Agrarian Reform adopted a goal of distributed all CARP-eligible land by the end of Pres. Aquino's term in 2016. As of June 2013, 694,181 hectares remained to be distributed, according to DAR. Hacienda Luisita, owned by the Cojuangco family, which includes the late former President Corazon C. Aquino and her son, current President Aquino, has been a notable case of land reform.

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program

             The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program is the current law under which land reform is conducted. Large land-holdings are broken up and distributed to farmers and workers on that particular hacienda. The crops grown on such haciendas include sugar and rice. Each farmer is giving a "certificates of land ownership award" or CLOA for their new property. Under the law, a landowner can only retain 5 hectares, regardless of the size of the hacienda. Conflict can arise between previous landowners and "beneficiaries" and between competing farmers' groups that have conflicting claims. In December 2008, CARP expired and the following year CARPer was passed. CARPer stands for "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms". CARPer expires in 2014.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_the_Philippines

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