Reading in Philippine History

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Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Issues in Philippine History

Module 11 Week 11 Social, Political, Economic,

and Cultural Issues in
Philippine History

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Identify and Understand the Agrarian Reform Policies
2. Analyze issues in the Philippines such as social, cultural, economic, and
political issue using history
3. Recognize numerous current issues in the Philippine society over history.

Agrarian Reform Policies

Agrarian Reform
- Essentially the restructuring of the whole system of agriculture.
- It is the Philippine economy vital part because it is approximately partial of the
population is employed in the agricultural sector, and most citizens live in rural areas
- It also focused on the affiliation between production and the dissemination of land
among farmers.
- Agriculture is the main source of living particularly for the emerging countries. Reforms
are significant because they protect the rights of the farmers.
- It also concerns the handling of the raw materials that are manufactured by farming the
land from the particular industries.
- It incorporates all programs designed to bring about development in all the
organizations surrounding farm life, as well as acquaintance measures essential to
make the work of the resident, farmers, and owner cultivator prosperous.

Philippines Landownership under Spain

When the Spaniards colonized the Philippines, they conveyed the system of Pueblo
agricultural, where the rural groups, often disseminated and spread in nature, were structured
into a pueblo and given land to nurture.
The Spain’s King owned the land so that Families are not permissible to own their land and
Filipino were allocated to these land to nurture them.
They compensated their colonial tributes to the Spanish Authorities in the form of
agricultural products.
Through the Indies Law, the Spanish crown awarded areas of land to the following:
1. Religious Order
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 2. Repartamientos for Spanish military as reward for their service
3. Spanish encomenderos, those mandated to manage the encomienda or the lands given to
them, where Filipinos worked and paid their tributes to the encomendero.
Filipinos only worked so they might have a part of the harvests and pay compliments, they
were not given the right to own the land.
Encomienda system was an unfair and obnoxious system as “compras y vandala” became the
custom for the Filipino farmers working the land – they were through to trade their products at a
cheaper price or surrender their products to the encomenderos, who resold this at a income.
Filipino in Encomienda were also necessary to render services to their encomenderos that were
discrete to agricultural.
Hacienda system was established at the beginning of the 19th century as the Spanish
government implemented rules that would fast track the access of the colony into the industrial
world. The mixed, native, and elite families of Spanish in the state relished exclusive rights over
enormous areas of productive lands, and abused the native Filipino labors to work on their
manors for their profit at the locals' expenditure. Distinct the abolishment of the hacienda system
in the South American after their liberation, this system continuous to occur in the Philippines
even after became independent in 1946. The hacendados became more visibly authoritative, and
they formed new aristocracy of the autonomous country. Some agrarian reforms were familiarized
in Philippines in the later years to balance land dissemination between the landless farmers and
rich landowners, but less than total accomplishment has been attained to date. The Ramon
Magsaysay Philippine Presidency is worthy of declaration, during his term in bureau many
Philippines landless farmers were given land ownership. The partition between the rich and the
poor Filipinos on the basis of land title, but, still remains to outbreak this island nation.

Landownership in the Philippines under the Americans

We are aware that Americans were the main reason of social unrest in the Philippines was
landlessness. They endeavored to put an end to the terrible situations of the tenant farmers by passing
numerous land policies to increase the minor landholders and allocate the title to a greater number of
Filipino tenants and agrarians.
The 1902 Philippines Bill provided regulations on the discarding of public lands. Each
private individual may possess 16 hectares of land while corporate landowners may partake 1,024
hectares. The Philippine Commission also enacted Act No. 496 or the Land Registration Act, which
introduced the Torrens system to discourse the absence of previous records of allotted land titles
and conduct exact land surveys. The 1903 homestead program was presented, permitting a tenant
to enter into a farming business by attaining a farm of at least 16 hectares but it was limited to
areas in Northern Luzon and Mindanao, where colonial diffusion had been tough for Americans, a
problem they innate from the Spaniards.
This early land reform was also applied without support mechanisms- if a landless farmer
received land, they just received land, nothing else. Many were enforced to return to tenancy and
well-off Filipino hacienderos bought or forcefully took over lands from agrarians who could not
afford to pay their debts.
The system introduced by the Americans allow more properties to be positioned under
tenancy, which led to widespread farmworker revolts, such as the Colorum and Sakdal Uprising in
Luzon. Agrarians and workers found haven from millenarian movements that provided them hope
that change could still happen through militancy.
 Reading in Philippine History
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Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Issues in Philippine History

During the Commonwealth government years, the condition were deteriorated as farmers
revolts increased and landlords-tenant affiliation became more and more disparate. President Quezon
placed a social justice program concentrated on the purchased of haciendas, which were to be distributed
and traded to tenants. His government also created the National Rice and Corn Corporation (NARIC) to
allocate public defenders to assist farmers in the court battles for their privileges to the land, and the
Court of Industrial Relations to use jurisdiction over disagreements arising from landowner-tenant
affiliation. The homestead program also continuous over the National Land Settlement Administration
(NLSA). Efforts toward agrarian reform by the Commonwealth failed because of many difficulties such as
budget distribution for the settlement program and widespread farmer revolts. World War II put
cessation to all interventions to solve these problems as the Japanese occupied the country.

Post-war Interventions toward Agrarian Reform

Course Module
 Restoration and innovation after the war were engrossed on providing solutions to the problems
of the previous the administration of President Roxas handed Republic Act No. 34 to establish a 70-30
allocation arrangement between tenant and landowner, correspondingly, which reduced the interest of
landowners’ mortgages to tenants at six percent or less. The government also tried to reallocated
hacienda lands, deteriorating prey to despairs of similar actions since no provision was given to small
agrarians who were given lands.
The Land Settlement Development Corporation (LASEDECO), under the period of President
Elpidio Quirino, was established to accelerate and expand the resettlement program for farmers, this
agency later on became the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) under the
government of President Ramon Magsaysay. Magsaysay saw the significance of pursuing genuine land
reform program and persuaded the Congress, majority of which were elite owners, to pass legislation to
develop the land reform situation.
NARRA improved the government’s relocation program and dissemination of agricultural lands to
landless tenants and agrarians. It also intended to persuade members of the Huks, a movement of rebels
in Central Luzon, to relocate in areas where they could resume their lives as peaceful citizen.
A major pace in land reform arrived during the term of President Diosdado Macapagal over the
Agricultural Land Reform Code (Republic Act No.3844)

This Code eliminated share occupancy in the Philippines and prescribed a program to
transform tenant-farmers to boarders and later on owner-cultivators. It also aimed to allowed tenants
from tenancy and emphasize owner-cultivatorship and agrarian individuality, equality, equity,
productivity improvement, and public land dissemination.
 Reading in Philippine History
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Social, Political, Economic, and Cultural Issues in Philippine History

Agrarian Reform Efforts under Marcos

Martial Law in 1972 was declared by President Marcos, allowing him to fundamentally wipe out
the landlord-dominated Congress. Over his “technocrats” he was able to develop executive power to start
a “fundamental restructuring” of government, with its exertions in solving the deep structural problems of
the country.

Many other techniques were engaged by the elite to discover a way to uphold their power
and power, which were deteriorated by the exploitation of Marcos and his associates who were also
involve in the agricultural area.

Course Module
CARPER and the Further of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines
“The new deadline of CARP terminated in 2008, leaving 1.2 million agrarian beneficiaries and 1.6
million hectares of agricultural land to be disseminated to farmers. In 2009, Republic Act No. 9700 was
signed by President Arroyo or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms
(CARPER), the amendatory law that extended the deadline to five more years. Section 30 of the law also
mandates that any case and/or continuing including the implementation of provisions of CARP, as amended,
which may endure pending on 30 June 2014 shall be allowed to proceed to its finality and executed even
beyond such date.”
From 2009 to 2014, CARPER has disseminated a total of 1 million hectares of property to 900,000
agrarian beneficiaries. After 27 years of land reform and two Aquino admirations, 500,000 hectares of
properties stay undistributed. The DAR and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
are the government agencies mandated to fulfill CARP and CARPER, however even the joint effort and
resources of the two agencies have shown incapable of fully accomplishing the aim of agrarian reform in
the Philippines. The same problems have afflicted its implementation: the influential landed elite and the
indecisive bureaucracy of the Philippine government. Until these two challenges are conquered, genuine
agrarian reform in the Philippines remains but a dream to Filipino Farmers who have been fighting for
their right to landownership for eras.

References and Supplementary Materials

Books and Journals
1. Antonio, Eleonor D., Dallo, Evangeline M. at et al... ; 2010; Kayamanan (kasaysayan ng
Pilipinas); Sampaloc, Manila; Rex Book Store, Inc.
2. Agoncillo, Teodoro A.; 2010; Philippine History; South Triangle, Quezon City; C & E
Publishing, Inc.
3. Candelaria, John Lee P., Alporha, Veronica C.: Reading in Philippine History; Sampaloc
Manila: REX Book Store, Inc.

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

1. http://www.economywatch.com/agrarian/reform.html
2. https://www.slideshare.net/NeilDagohoy/agrarian-reform-in-the-philippines
3. https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra1963/ra_3844_1963.html
4. https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/presdecs/pd1972/pd_27_1972.html
Online Instructional Videos
1. Agrarian Reform; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7YpBARMsaY