Agrarian Reform Law

For us Filipinos, land is life. Specially that most of the grass roots are composed mainly
of farmers. In our country with a largely agrarian economy, access to arable land can determine
whether one can keep a roof over his head, put food on the table, and assure his childrens future.
However, history would tell us that land distribution in our country has been inequitable,
with landlords maintaining a feudalistic hold over large portions of viable farmlands, thus
aggravating poverty.
Came Republic Act 6657: Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 which seeks to
enforce 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. Although
having good intentions, it has come under criticisms because despite having been in effect for two
and a half decades, it has failed to reach its redistribution target.
Agrarian reform remains an unfinished business. Under the 1987 Philippine Constitution,
Article XII, Section 4 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.
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 laws 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.
It seems the constitutional provision on agrarian reform is not given much weight and
credence the fact that each administration focus on different platforms and only a little or
minimal contribution to the past administrations program on the said reform.
There are many challenges encountered in the course of acquiring and distributing private
lands to the beneficiaries as sourced from the present administration .In some cases, technical
descriptions in the land titles which determine the boundaries of the land were found to be
erroneous and had to be corrected. Some titles were destroyed, and therefore, had to be reissued
by undergoing a court process, similar to filing a case.
Potential beneficiaries argued among themselves on who should or should not be
qualified as beneficiaries; these disputes had to be mediated or resolved by the government. In
other cases, landowners may petition that their lands be exempted or excluded from CARP
coverage, and some of these petitions have gone up to the Supreme Court. Now that efforts are
focused on smaller but more numerous cuts of land, there are more claim folders to process and
distribute. With that being said we are still hoping for the best and realization of what is called
social justice.

Ameling, Philip Ray B.

Agrarian Reform Law