Narratives of Land: The Current State of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines

ALMOST twenty-six years of implementation, still counting and with completion nowhere near in sight. This amount of time that the Philippine government has taken to implement and complete the key provisions of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) law translates to a whole generation of Filipinos, including children of farmers, who have been born at the time of the law’s passage, have grown up through the years of tentative and unfinished implementation, and reaching adulthood amid current intensified clamor for government to complete its task.
CARP is now the longest running program being implemented under a democratic political system, post-EDSA 1986. It has been widely seen as the litmus test of past and present administrations’ commitment to social justice, as mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution. CARPER or Republic Act 9700, signed 7 August 2009, gave the original Republic Act 6657 or CARP five more years to be completed. In 1998, CARP’s land acquisition and distribution component had been given its first 10-year extension and additional funding of PhP 50 billion through Republic Act 8532.
One of the main goals during the extension period should be the completion of land distribution by June 30, 2014. The program should get PhP 150 billion for five years or PhP 30 billion per year for land acquisition and distribution and agrarian justice delivery (a total of 60 percent share for the two components), and for support services (40 percent). CARPER introduced other meaningful reforms articulated by farmers and rural women’s organizations, agrarian reform advocates, and the Catholic Church. These measures aim to address loopholes in CARP and problems that have arisen from its implementation and which have beset the program since its inception more than two decades ago.
Why Agrarian Reform?
Agrarian reform remains an unfinished business under the 1987 Philippine Constitution. As a key social justice mechanism, CARP and CARPER have yet to fulfill their promise. Article XII, Section 4 of the Constitution provides that “the State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farm workers, 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.”
In 2002, however, the National Statistics Office surveys showed that 348,297 household members that were engaged in agricultural activity were working in landholdings not their own. This indicated that a considerable number of landless farmers have yet to own directly or collectively the lands they tilled. Part of the reason for this had been the inability of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the main agency tasked to implement the program, to distribute land already identified for CARP, as well as the failure to have a database that could aid in accurately identifying the landless farmers for land distribution targeting.
Agrarian reform is also a major reform measure addressing rural poverty. as rural poverty and landlessness are closely linked. Based on government data (Table 1), poverty is highest in the top provinces where there have been large backlogs in land distribution. In 2011, these provinces accounted for more than one-third the total land distribution balance. This information is significant because these provinces also figured prominently in the list of provinces where the poorest families have been found— far above the national average of 25.2 percent in 2012. Negros Occidental, Camarines Sur, Leyte, Iloilo and Lanao del Sur are also among the top 10 provinces with women in poor households, according to the 2009 National Household Targeting Survey for Poverty Reduction of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
What these government figures highlight is that poverty in these areas can be linked to the continuing failure to effect agrarian reform. Assessment studies conducted by Balisacan (2007), Gordoncillo (2008) and Reyes (1998) have stressed this link; the technical working paper of the World Bank (2009) further posited that the modest impact of CARP on poverty alleviation and growth had been mainly due to DAR’s inability to prioritize the acquisition of private agricultural lands through compulsory acquisition.

Slow Death: Reality of Agrarian Reform under P-Noy
“Tatapusin ang pamamahagi ng lupa sa ilalim ng CARPER sa aking panunungkulan.” (Land distribution under CARPER shall be completed under my term) That was the promise of President Aquino during his third state of the nation address in July 2012: famers shall own the lands they till.
With four months left before the June 30, 2014 ‘deadline’ for the land distribution component of CARPER, President Benigno Aquino III must muster all the political and social capital to finally see the program through. Under his helm, government must effectively complete land distribution, implement the reforms under CARPER such as rural women-friendly provisions in terms of giving access to land and support services, socialized credit and initial capitalization for new and old agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs), expand the support services scope beyond the agrarian reform communities (ARCs), provide agrarian justice delivery, and ensure adequate budget for the implementation of agrarian reform. The underlying goal is to usher in a lasting era of social justice in the countryside and ensure the economic viability and political empowerment of agrarian reform beneficiaries.
According to DAR, as of end-2013, the official land acquisition and distribution balance is a total of 790,671 hectares from 80,867 landholdings. This means that the department needs to distribute 197,667.8 hectares per month from March to June 30, 2014 to stick to the ‘deadline’. There are still 206,536 hectares of lands with no Notices of Coverage (NOCs). The Notices of Coverage kicks off the land distribution process for private agricultural lands under compulsory acquisition, which is now the main mode of acquisition under CARPER. This landholdings comprise the bulk of remaining lands to be distributed—470,274 hectares of lands or 60 percent of the total land distribution balance.
Further, coconut, rice and sugar cane lands comprise more than two-thirds of lands that still need to be distributed under CARPER. Based on DAR’s figures, as of January 2013, there are 262,524 hectares of coconut lands, 178,690 hectares of rice lands and 145,802 hectares planted to sugarcane that are up for distribution.
Unfortunately, the national land reform program is now at a dire state, ultimately, as a result of DAR’s halfhearted commitment to act decisively for the interests of its primary constituency—small, landless farmers. CARP is on the verge of death at the hands of the present DAR, under Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes. Delos Reyes promised to distribute more than 1.2 million hectares of lands, targeting 200,000 for 2011; 180,000 hectares for 2012; 260,000 hectares for 2013; and 200,000 hectares for 2014. This leaves around as much as 360,000 hectares of undistributed land or 30 percent of the total balance by June 2014.
Contrary to its padded accomplishment reports, the present administration’s DAR has consistently failed to meet its yearly targets, failed to provide support services to its beneficiaries, and failed to protect farmers’ rights from illegal conversions and land-grabbing.
Previous figures would attest to this trend under Delos Reyes. In 2011, DAR was able to distribute 18,414 landholdings or 111,889 hectares of lands to 63,755 ARBs. This was only 60 percent of the targets for that year, and 56 percent of which or 69,903 hectares were non-private agricultural lands, or settlements, landed estates and government-owned lands. In its own “Report on the State of Agrarian Reform (2012),” DAR admits that “the first one and half years of the Aquino government were less than outstanding and that DAR failed to meet its target for the year.”[i]
Further, according to DAR’s own figures, of the total 710,000 hectares of lands originally targeted for distribution between July 2010 to June 2013, only 360,464 hectares or 51 percent of the annual targets were distributed to agrarian reform beneficiaries. As in the past, DAR had re-adjusted their annual targets to make their performance look good on paper. As an example, in its 2013 accomplishment report, DAR reported that it fully redistributed the 4,099 hectares of Hacienda Luisita— even as it continues to neglect the physical installation and delivery of support services to Luisita’s farmers.
The official figures from DAR all point to one conclusion. Land distribution, which is the heart of CARPER, is languishing under the administration of Pres. Aquino and DAR secretary, Gil delos Reyes. The current administration’s CARP performance is the “worst since 1988,” the year CARP took effect.
Despite recent pronouncements, the major hurdle for CARPER’s implementation is the non-priority accorded to agrarian reform by the Aquino administration. Its CARP performance showed only five percent achievement rate in land distribution output vs. targets, compared with the Ramos administration’s 46 percent, Arroyo’s 23 percent and Cory Aquino’s 21 percent. The current administration’s performance is even worse than the Estrada administration’s 5.4 percent, which distributed lands for about the same period of two years before former President Estrada was ousted.
Furthermore, the quality of implementation is also a big question: whether the lands reported as distributed have been actually given to agrarian reform beneficiaries and that these beneficiaries have the land titles in their hands, and that they are being provided with appropriate support services such as access to socialized credit, irrigation, etc. remain to be validated. Only when these components are realized can government claim fulfillment of its obligations under the law.

People’s Calls and Demands
On completion of land redistribution: ▪ Issue all Notices of Coverage before the June 30, 2014 deadline of land distribution. For President Aquino to order his secretary to issue the NOCs swiftly and decisively.

▪ DAR and DENR should account for the more than one million hectares of LAD targets, and show the list of landholdings per area as soon as possible. We cannot overemphasize the importance of publicly disclosing data to speed up the distribution of private agricultural lands, especially in the top 20 provinces with the biggest backlog.

▪ Repeal/amend conservative AOs such as 7 and 9 that opened up CARPER to anti-agrarian reform tactics by landowners

▪ State alarm over the report that land reform in public land is almost complete, invoke issue of transparency: where are these distributed public lands? This is contrary to experience where public land distribution is as difficult if not more difficult to distribute that private lands.

▪ Resolve the issuance of double and multiple titling. Have a clear process on resolving competing claims over the same land, especially in Mindanao.

▪ Promotion of women’s equal rights to land ownership and push for the implementation of AO 1 on Gender Equality.

▪ Specific in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao: Review the current contract growing arrangements in Mindanao; repeal/review the SDOs in Visayas; and stop land use conversions in irrigated and irrigable lands in Luzon

▪ Prohibit the entry of mining investments and operations in CARP areas.

On support services: ▪ Full provision of integrated support services to new and existing agrarian reform beneficiaries.

On agrarian justice: ▪ Call for the immediate and decisive action and resolution of flash point cases that are especially still pending, highly irregular and anomalous. Immediate installation of farmers in lands, which have been awarded to them. And immediate resolution of all cases pending in PARAD, RARAD and DARAB, BALA. ▪ Protection of ARBs against harassment, intimidations, and economic sabotage (e/g. destruction of crops) perpetrated by the military, New Peoples’ Army and landlords/private goons. Decisive investigation of harassment and human rights violation of farmers, rural women, and land rights defenders.

On the budget: ▪ Allocate the maximum budget of P 150 B mandated by RA 9700.

On transparency and good governance: ▪ Ensure the ARB’s and agrarian reform advocates’ right to information in the implementation of the agrarian reform program. Farmers demand the full disclosure of specific landholdings and not mere simple statistics. DAR and DENR must provide the list of targets and accomplishments by landholdings.

▪ Full disclosure of DAR’s exit program

▪ Ensure transparency and genuine participation of farmer beneficiaries, pro-reform forces, and CSOs in the implementation of agrarian reform.

▪ Overhaul, and re-energize the bureaucracy as part of good governance. Remove all corrupt DAR officials