RIPH

• Land reform


  Wide variety of measures and programs usually by the government to bring about more effective control and use of land for the benefit of the community
• Land reform


  Takeover of land by the State from big landlords with compensation, and transfer it to small farmers or landless workers
• Land reform


  Aims to change the agrarian structure to bring equity and to increase productivity
• Agrarian reform


  More complex and broader than land reform, includes measures to modernize agricultural practices and improve living conditions of the entire agrarian community
• Aspects of agrarian reform

  • Economic
  • Socio-cultural
  • Religious
  • Moral
  • Legal
  • Political
• Economic aspect


  Agricultural development is prior to industrial development and progress
• Socio-cultural aspect


  Leads to self-reliance, self-esteem, dignity, and improve quality of life
• Religious aspect


  Solidly grounded in both the Old and New Testaments and Social Teachings
• Religious aspect - Vatican II Decree


  Stresses & reaffirms the biblical teachings the right to having a share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one's family belongs to everyone
• Moral aspect


  Sees the need for a just distribution of agricultural lands to landless farmers
• Legal aspect


  Based on constitutional mandates
• Legal aspect - Constitutional mandates

  • Art II Sec 10 promote social justice
  • Art II Sec 21 promote comprehensive rural development & agrarian reform
  • Art XII Sec 1 promote industrialization and full employment based on sound agricultural development and agrarian reform
  • Art XIII Sec 2 afford full protection to labor and promote equal work opportunities
  • Art XIII Sec 4-10 undertake an agrarian reform program as well as housings programs for homeless citizens
  • Art XIII Sec 1 regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, and disposition of property and its increments
• Political aspect


  Agrarian reform is a top priority of the government and of almost every Philippine president, measures the extent of willingness of the national leadership to implement the law
• Before the Spaniards came to the Philippines, the Filipino social system was feudal with a warrior class bound by fealty to a warlord living on the labor of serfs and slaves
• Pre-Spanish social classes


  • Datus (Chiefs)
  • Maharlikas (Nobel)
  • Timawas (Freemen)
  • Aliping Namamahay (Serfs)
  • Aliping Saguiguilid (Slaves)
• Freeborn (Timawas)


  Did not pay tributes or taxes to the Datu but were bound to follow him to war, provided their own weapons and gears, manned the cars when they set sail, built their houses, and planted their rice fields
• Serf (Aliping Namamahay)


  Served their master or lord, who may be a Datu or someone else who is a Maharlika and tilled his land, both master and serfs equally divided the produce of the land, had houses of their own, maintained private property, and passed these on to their children as legacy, were also allowed the free disposal of their chattels and their lands
• Slave (Aliping Saguiguilid)


  Served the lord or master in both his house and farm, were allowed some share of the harvest, but they were their master's property and could be sold
• In the subsistence economy of the early Filipinos, money was unknown, and rice served as the medium of exchange
• Barangay


  Consist of 30-100 families
• Kaingin system


  Land cultivation and burn method
• Early laws


  • Maragtas Code
  • Kalantiaw Code
• Maragtas Code


  Written by Datu Sumakwel about 1250 A.D., also known as "Land Sale" - the selling of Panay Island to the 10 Bornean Datus in exchange for a golden salakot and a long gold necklace
• Kalantiaw Code


  Written by Datu Kalantiaw in 1433 A.D.
• Encomienda system


  Lands were divided and granted to encourage Spanish settlers or reward soldiers who served the Crown, the encomendero ("1st hacienderos") must defend his encomienda from external attack, maintain peace and order within, and support the missionaries, the encomendero acquired the right to collect tribute (tax) from the indios (natives)
• The encomienda system degenerated into abuse of power by the encomenderos, the tributes they were authorized to collect soon became land rents, and the people living within the boundaries of the encomienda became tenants
• Classes of estate proprietors

  • The Religious Orders (Dominican and Augustinian)
  • The Spanish Peninsulares
  • The Criollos and Mestizos
  • The Native Principales
• Inquilinos


  The natives and mestizos who leased lands from the Dominican friars, paid a fixed ground rent for the area they cultivated
• The inquilinos abused the policy by disposing off the lands as if they owned them, selling their interest in them or mortgaging to wealthy takers, or sub leasing them at rents higher than what they themselves paid
• The Spanish authorities were aware of these pernicious practices, but no effective measures were made in spite of two royal decrees issued in 1880 and 1884 urging landholders to secure titles
• Royal Decree 1880 and 1884


  Granted a term of one year within which claims for free titles were to be filed, but only a few took advantage of the offer, mostly of the cacique class who claimed more lands than they actually had a right to
• Immediately after the establishment of the First Republic of the Philippines in January of 1899, the government of President Emilio Aguinaldo declared its intention to confiscate large estates, especially the so-called Friar Lands, but this was never implemented as the Republic was short-lived
• At the start of the American era, some 400,000 native farmers were without titles, absence of records of issued titles and accurate land surveys, leading to land disputes and agrarian troubles
• Torrens system of land registration

  Titles were granted only after the completion of a survey and land ownership had been proven in court, but majority of farmers did not avail themselves of it due to lack of awareness or inability to pay the required fees
• Significant legislative pieces during American period

  • Philippine Bill of 1902
  • Land Registration Act of 1902 (Act No. 496)
  • Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 (Act No. 4054)
  • Tenancy Act of 1933 (Act No. 4113)
• American authorities could not touch the Friar Lands as these were covered by valid land titles issued during the Spanish era, and the Treaty of Paris of 1898 bound the U.S. government to protect the property interests of religious orders
• The best solution offered for the Friar Lands condition was the outright purchase of the lands, and by 1919, about 69 percent of all Friar Lands had been bought and disposed of by the U.S. Civil Government of the Philippines
• The problems of land tenure relationships had already given cause to armed discontent among oppressed tenants of estates, leading to the Colorum Revolt in 1931 and the Sakdal Revolt in 1935
• In response, Quezon improved and strengthened existing laws on land tenure, provided compulsory arbitration of agrarian conflicts, and suspended any action to eject tenants from the land they till and live in
• Quezon's social justice program included the expropriation of landed estates and other big landholdings, and the orderly settlement of virgin public agricultural lands, with focus on Mindanao under the National Land Settlement Administration