AGRARIAN REFORM AND SOCIAL LEGISLATION
JOY CASIS
Philippine Constitution Provisions
Article II – State Policies
Section 21. The State shall promote comprehensive rural development
and agrarian reform.
ARTICLE XII – National Patrimony
Section 1. The goals of the national economy are a more equitable
distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth; a sustained increase in
the amount of goods and services produced by the nation for the benefit
of the people; and an expanding productivity as the key to raising the
quality of life for all, especially the under- privileged.
The State shall promote industrialization and full employment based on
sound agricultural development and agrarian reform, through industries
that make full and efficient use of human and natural resources, and
which are competitive in both domestic and foreign markets. However,
the State shall protect Filipino enterprises against unfair foreign
competition and trade practices.
In the pursuit of these goals, all sectors of the economy and all regions of
the country shall be given optimum opportunity to develop. Private
enterprises, including corporations, cooperatives, and similar collective
organizations, shall be encouraged to broaden the base of their
ownership.
ARTICLE XIII – Agrarian and Natural Resources Reform
Section 4. The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform program
founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers who are
landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of
farmworkers, to receive just share of the fruits thereof. To this end, the
State shall encourage and undertake the just limits as the Congress
prescribes, taking into account ecological, developmental, or retention
limits, the Stet shall respect the rights of small landowners. The State
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shall provide further incentives for voluntary land-sharing
Section 5. The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers,
and landowners, as well as cooperatives, and other independent farmers’
organizations to participate in the planning, organization and
management of the program, and shall provide support to agriculture
through appropriate technology and research, and adequate financial
production, marketing, and other support services.
Section 6. The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or
stewardship whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the
disposition or utilization of other natural resources, including lands of the
public domain under lease or concession suitable to agriculture, subject
to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of
indigenous communities to their ancestral lands.
The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own
agricultural estates which shall be distributed to them in the manner
provided by law.
Section 8. The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the
proceeds of the agrarian reform program to promote industrialization,
employment creation, and privatization of public sector enterprises.
Financial instruments used as payment for their lands shall be honored
as equity in enterprises of their choice.
What is the Agrarian Reform Program?
• Comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform
• Equitable distribution of opportunities, income and wealth
• Expanding productivity raising quality of life for all
• Promote Industrialization and Privatization
• Agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and
regular farmworkers
o Farmer – those who works in the land, keeps livestock
o Farmworker – hired to work in a farm
• Apply principles of stewardship whenever applicable
• The state may resettle landless farmers/farmworkers
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• The right of farmers, farmworkers, and landowners, as well as
cooperatives, and other independent farmers’ organizations to
participate in the planning, organization and management of the
program
• The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the
proceeds of the agrarian reform program to promote
industrialization, employment creation, and privatization
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)
(R.A. 6657)
Section 2.Declaration of Principles and Policies. — It is the policy of
the State to pursue a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
The welfare of the landless farmers and farmworkers will receive the
highest consideration to promote social justice and to move the nation
toward sound rural development and industrialization, and the
establishment of owner cultivatorship of economic-size farms as the basis
of Philippine agriculture.
To this end, a more equitable distribution and ownership of land, with due
regard to the rights of landowners to just compensation and to the
ecological needs of the nation, shall be undertaken to provide farmers
and farmworkers with the opportunity to enhance their dignity and
improve the quality of their lives through greater productivity of
agricultural lands.
The agrarian reform program is founded on the right of 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. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake
the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to the priorities and
retention limits set forth in this Act, having taken into account ecological,
developmental, and equity considerations, and subject to the payment of
just compensation. The State shall respect the right of small landowners,
and shall provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.
The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers and
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ATTY. JOY CASIS
landowners, as well as cooperatives and other independent farmers'
organizations, to participate in the planning, organization, and
management of the program, and shall provide support to agriculture
through appropriate technology and research, and adequate financial
production, marketing and other support services.
The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform, or stewardship,
whenever applicable, in accordance with law, in the disposition or
utilization of other natural resources, including lands of the public domain,
under lease or concession, suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights,
homestead rights of small settlers and the rights of indigenous
communities to their ancestral lands.
The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own
agricultural estates, which shall be distributed to them in the manner
provided by law.
By means of appropriate incentives, the State shall encourage the
formation and maintenance of economic-size family farms to be
constituted by individual beneficiaries and small landowners.
The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of
local communities, to the preferential use of communal marine and fishing
resources, both inland and offshore.t shall provide support to such
fishermen through appropriate technology and research, adequate
financial, production and marketing assistance and other services. The
State shall also protect, develop and conserve such resources. The
protection shall extend to offshore fishing grounds of subsistence
fishermen against foreign intrusion. Fishworkers shall receive a just share
from their labor in the utilization of marine and fishing resources.
The State shall be guided by the principles that land has a social function
and land ownership has a social responsibility. Owners of agricultural
lands have the obligation to cultivate directly or through labor
administration the lands they own and thereby make the land productive.
The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the proceeds of
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the agrarian reform program to promote industrialization, employment
and privatization of public sector enterprises. Financial instruments used
as payment for lands shall contain features that shall enhance
negotiability and acceptability in the marketplace.
The State may lease undeveloped lands of the public domain to qualified
entities for the development of capital-intensive farms, and traditional and
pioneering crops especially those for exports subject to the prior rights of
the beneficiaries under this Act
Section 3. Definitions -
(a) Agrarian Reform means redistribution of lands, regardless of crops
or fruits produced, to farmers and regular farmworkers who are landless,
irrespective of tenurial arrangement, to include the totality of factors and
support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries
and all other arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of
lands, such as production or profit-sharing, labor administration, and the
distribution of shares of stocks, which will allow beneficiaries to receive a
just share of the fruits of the lands they work.
(b) Agriculture, Agricultural Enterprise or Agricultural Activity means the
cultivation of the soil, planting of crops, growing of fruit trees, raising of
livestock, poultry or fish, including the harvesting of such farm products,
and other farm activities and practices performed by a farmer in
conjunction with such farming operations done by person whether natural
or juridical.
(c) Agricultural Land refers to land devoted to agricultural activity as
defined in this Act and not classified as mineral, forest, residential,
commercial or industrial land.
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Association of Small landowners vs. Secretary of Agrarian Reform
G.R. No. 78772
The case started of with a mythological story and then continued with a
brief history of land reform in the country, mentioning the past
Constitutions and statutes. The case made mention of “Land for the
Landless”
FACTS:
Case no. 1 (GR No. 79777)
Constitutionality of PD 27, EO 228 and 229 and RA 6657
• Owner Manaay (petitioner) and thru the EO 228, farmers became
owner of 9 hectare Riceland
o Separation of powers
§ President usurps by issuing EO 228
o Due Process on the landowners taking of property
o Equal Protection
§ Other landowners has no similar obligation
o Constitutional limitation: no private property maybe taken
without just compensation
Case no. 2 (GR No. 79310)
• Petitioners in this case are landowner and sugar planters of
Victoria Mill District, Victorias, Negros Occidental and co-
petitioener Planter’s committee with 1,400 planter-members
• Petition seeks to prohibit the implementation of Proc. No. 131 and
E.O. 229
• Arguments:
o Petitioner questions Proc. No. 131 on the Agriarian reform
fund that it should be funded from the receipts in the sale
ill-gotten wealth received through the PCGG.
There is hereby created a special fund, to be known as
the Agrarian Reform Fund, an initial amount of FIFTY
BILLION PESOS (P50,000,000,000.00) to cover the
estimated cost of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program from 1987 to 1992
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o Also demands that they shall receive just compensation
from the moment of taking.
o E.O. 229 is unconstitutional because:
(1) Only public lands should be included in the CARP;
(2) E.O. No. 229 embraces more than one subject which
is not expressed in the title;
(3) The power of the President to legislate was terminated
on July 2, 1987; and
(4) The appropriation of a P50 billion special fund from the
National Treasury did not originate from the House of
Representatives
Case no. 3 (79744)
Inocentes protested erroneous inclusion of small landholding under
Operation Land transfer and ask for recall and cancellation of the
Certificates of Land Transfer
(1) E.O. Nos. 228 and 229 were invalidly issued by the
President of the Philippines.
(2) The said executive orders are violative of the
constitutional provision that no private property shall be
taken without due process or just compensation.
(3) The petitioner is denied the right of maximum retention
provided for under the 1987 Constitution
EO 228 declares that: Lease rentals paid to the land owner by the farmer-
beneficiary after October 21, 1972 shall be considered as advance
payment for the land.
• Small land owner – consisting of seven hectares, its taking is
undemocratic.
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ATTY. JOY CASIS
Case no. 4 (78742)
• Invoke the right of retention granted by the PD 272:
No tenant-farmer in agricultural lands primarily devoted to
rice and corn shall be ejected or removed from his
farmholding until such time as the respective rights of the
tenant- farmers and the landowner shall have been
determined in accordance with the rules and regulations
implementing P.D. No. 27.
• Cannot eject before the release of an IRR and the DAR has still
not issued an IRR.
RELEVANT ISSUES:
1. WoN the Proc. 131 and EO 228 & 229 is constitutional? – YES
a. WoN President usurps legislative powers? - NO
b. WoN violates constitution retention limits? – NO
c. WoN petitioner can compel by mandamus the issuance of
IRR? – NO
2. WoN the taking of the land requires just compensation/ WoN the
CARP is an exercise of eminent domain or police power? – Yes;
EMINENT DOMAIN
a. WoN public agricultural land only is covered by CARP? –
NO
b. WoN just compensation shall be paid with case? –
Generally Yes, but in CARP it may be other than money.
HELD:
1. YES.
a. The promulgation of P.D. No. 27 by President Marcos in
the exercise of his powers under martial law has already
been sustained in Gonzales v. Estrella and we find no
reason to modify or reverse it on that issue. As for the
power of President Aquino to promulgate Proc. No. 131
and E.O. Nos. 228 and 229, the same was authorized
under Section 6 of the Transitory Provisions of the 1987
Constitution, quoted above.
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b. The argument of some of the petitioners that Proc. No.
131 and E.O. No. 229 should be invalidated because they
do not provide for retention limits as required by Article
XIII, Section 4 of the Constitution is no longer tenable.
R.A. No. 6657 does provide for such limits now in Section
6 of the law, which in fact is one of its most controversial
provisions. This section declares:
Retention Limits. — Except as otherwise provided in
this Act, no person may own or retain, directly or
Matters of payment of just compensation:
indirectly, any public or private agricultural land, the
size of which shall vary according to factors governing a
viable family-sized farm, such as commodity produced,
terrain, infrastructure, and soil fertility as determined by
the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC)
created hereunder, but in no case shall retention by the
landowner exceed five (5) hectares. Three (3) hectares
may be awarded to each child of the landowner, subject
to the following qualifications: (1) that he is at least
fifteen (15) years of age; and (2) that he is actually
tilling the land or directly managing the farm; Provided,
That landowners whose lands have been covered by
Presidential Decree No. 27 shall be allowed to keep the
area originally retained by them thereunder, further,
That original homestead grantees or direct compulsory
heirs who still own the original homestead at the time of
the approval of this Act shall retain the same areas as
long as they continue to cultivate said homestead.
2. EMINENT DOMAIN, Yes it requires just compensation.
a. It is eminent domain because ecause the property
involved was wholesome and intended for a public use.
Property condemned under the police power is noxious or
intended for a noxious purpose.
Eminent domain limits is: (1) for public use; (2) payment
of just compensation.
b. It is not correct to say that only public agricultural lands
may be covered by the CARP as the Constitution calls for
"the just distribution of all agricultural lands." In any event,
the decision to redistribute private agricultural lands in the
manner prescribed by the CARP was made by the
legislative and executive departments in the exercise of
their discretion.
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ATTY. JOY CASIS
c. The determination of the just compensation can always
be questioned in court. It is violative of due process of the
land owner not to be able to question the assessed value
of DAR. Section 16(f) of the CARP law provides that the
DAR assessment if disagreed may bring the matter to the
court.
d. Section 18 of CARP law provides other mean of payment
of just compensation. The petitioners questions this grant.
The court allowed this since this is not traditional
exercise of the power of eminent domain. What we
deal here is a revolutionary kind of expropriation.
e. This kind of expropriation is intended for the benefit not
only of a particular community or of a small segment of
the population but of the entire Filipino nation, from all
levels of our society, from the impoverished farmer to the
land-glutted owner. Its purpose does not cover only the
whole territory of this country but goes beyond in time to
the foreseeable future, which it hopes to secure and edify
with the vision and the sacrifice of the present generation
of Filipinos.
f. Generations yet to come are as involved in this program
as we are today, although hopefully only as beneficiaries
of a richer and more fulfilling life we will guarantee to them
tomorrow through our thoughtfulness today. And, finally,
let it not be forgotten that it is no less than the
Constitution itself that has ordained this revolution in
the farms, calling for "a just distribution" among the
farmers of lands that have heretofore been the prison of
their dreams but can now become the key at least to their
deliverance.
g. It is true that P.D. No. 27 expressly ordered the
emancipation of tenant-farmer as October 21, 1972 and
declared that he shall "be deemed the owner" of a portion
of land consisting of a family-sized farm except that "no
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title to the land owned by him was to be actually issued to

him unless and until he had become a full-fledged
member of a duly recognized farmers' cooperative." It was
understood, however, that full payment of the just
compensation also had to be made first, conformably
to the constitutional requirement.

h. The CARP Law, for its part, conditions the transfer of

possession and ownership of the land to the
government on receipt by the landowner of the
corresponding payment or the deposit by the DAR of
the compensation in cash or LBP bonds with an
accessible bank. Until then, title also remains with the
landowner. No outright change of ownership is
contemplated either.

DISPOSITIVE PORTION: WHEREFORE, the Court holds as follows:

1. R.A. No. 6657, P.D. No. 27, Proc. No. 131, and E.O.
Nos. 228 and 229 are SUSTAINED against all the
constitutional objections raised in the herein petitions.

2. Title to all expropriated properties shall be transferred

to the State only upon full payment of compensation to
their respective owners.

3. All rights previously acquired by the tenant- farmers

under P.D. No. 27 are retained and recognized.

4. Landowners who were unable to exercise their rights

of retention under P.D. No. 27 shall enjoy the retention
rights granted by R.A. No. 6657 under the conditions
therein prescribed.

5. Subject to the above-mentioned rulings all the petitions

are DISMISSED, without pronouncement as to costs.

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