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“AGRARIAN REFORM” (A Requirement in Basic Economics with Taxation and Agrarian Reform) HARVEY DULAY ACOSTA ISSUE ON LAND GRABBING

Agrarian Reform Issue: Land Grabbing

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“AGRARIAN REFORM”

(A Requirement in Basic Economics with Taxation and Agrarian Reform)

HARVEY DULAY ACOSTA

ISSUE ON LAND GRABBING

What is CARP? 

CARP, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, is the redistribution of public and private agricultural lands to farmers and farm workers who are landless, irrespective of tenurial arrangement. CARP’s vision is to have an equitable land ownership with empowered agrarian reform beneficiaries who can effectively manage their economic and social development to have a better quality of life. 

One of the major programs of CARP is Land Tenure Improvement, which seeks to hasten distribution of lands to landless farmers. Similarly, the Department offers Support Services to the beneficiaries such as infrastructure facilities, marketing assistance program, credit assistance program, and technical support programs. Furthermore, the department seeks to facilitate, resolve cases and deliver Agrarian Justice.

The legal basis for CARP is the Republic Act No. 6657 otherwise known as Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) signed by President Corazon C. Aquino on June 10, 1988. It is an act which aims to promote social justice and industrialization, providing the mechanism for its implementation, and for other purposes.

Objectives of Agrarian Reform - Political

 to put an end to conflicts pertaining to land ownership.

to bring about harmony between the rural people and the

urban residents.

bringing stability in the political set up of the country.

Objectives of Agrarian Reform - Social

 bringing about equality in terms of opportunities, income as well as wealth.

Enhancing agricultural production

Enhancing agricultural productivity

Bettering capital formation

Providing employment to more agricultural workers

Enhancing demand for raw materials and services

Improving balance of payments by facilitating export

activities

Trying to increase production at home

Enhancing cooperation as well as regulation between

sectors.

Objectives of Agrarian Reform-Economics

CARP Major Features

It provides for the coverage of all agricultural lands

regardless of crops

produced or tenurial status of the tiller;

It recognizes as beneficiaries of the program all workers in

the land given

that they are landless and willing to till the land;

It provides for the delivery of support services to program

beneficiaries;

It provides for arrangements that ensure the tenurial

security of farmers

and farm workers such as the leasehold arrangement, stock

distribution

option and production and profit sharing; and

It creates an adjudication body that will resolve agrarian

disputes.

CARP Benefeciaries

all agricultural lessees share tenants regardless:

crops regular farm workers seasonal farm workers other farm workers farmer’s organization cooperatives

agricultural graduates rural women veterans and relatives of enlisted men and

women retirees of the AFP and the Integrated

National Police rebel returnees and surrenderees

Qualifications of an Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries

a. be landless;

b. be at least 15 years old or head of the family at the time the

property was transferred in the name of the Republic of the

Philippines; and

c. have the willingness, ability and aptitude to cultivate the land

and make it as productive as possible. (Sec. 23, RA 6657)

Note: Items (b) and (c) above are meant to ensure that the

recipients of the land will judiciously use it and make it a

productive agricultural land

Lands Covered by CARP

all alienable and disposable lands of the public

domain devoted to or suitable to agriculture;

all lands of the public domain in excess of the

specific limits as determined by Congress;

all other lands owned by the government devoted

to or suitable to agriculture; and

all private lands devoted to or suitable to

agriculture regardless of the agricultural products raised or

that can be raised therein. (Section 4, RA 6657)

Lands Not Covered by CARP

those which are devoted to poultry, swine, or livestock

raising as of June 15, 1988 pursuant to the Supreme Court

ruling on Luz Farms vs. The Honorable Secretary of Agrarian

Reform (G.R. No. 86339, 4 December 1990); and

those which are retained by the landowner (not

covered insofar as land acquisition and distribution but

covered with respect to other provisions, particularly

leasehold)

What is Land Grabbing?Land grabbing is the contentious issue of large-scale

land acquisitions: the buying or leasing of large pieces of land in developing countries, by domestic and transnational companies, governments, and individuals. While used broadly throughout history, land grabbing as used today primarily refers to large-scale land acquisitions following the 2007-2008 world food price crisis. Obtaining water resources is usually critical to the land acquisitions, so it has also led to an associated trend of water grabbing.

By prompting food security fears within the developed world and newfound economic opportunities for agricultural investors, the food price crisis caused a dramatic spike in large-scale agricultural investments, primarily foreign, in the Global South for the purposes of food and biofuels production. Although hailed by investors, economists, and some developing countries as a new pathway towards agricultural development, investment in land has recently been criticized by some NGOs and commentators who argue that it has had negative impacts on local communities. International law is implicated when attempting to regulate these transactions

Land Grabbing in the Philippines(Philippines, April 2013)

Land grabbing is a political-economic issue that happens internationally and nationally, and has historically not only threatened food sovereignty but also people’s everyday life. Land grabbing as well as natural resources grabbing has been happening over a century, since Philippines’ colonization by the Spanish in 1500s. Since then lands were taken away from the local farmers and given to the catholic authorities, private companies and “big” rich families with ties to the Spanish colonial officials. Thus, the local farmers were deprived of their key livelihood source. Consequently, this made the issue of the redistribution of land and the broader Agrarian Reform urgent and a vital issue of concern to the Filipino farmers and PARAGOS.

The establishment of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Agrarian Reform Special Account Fund in 1971 and the promulgation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) in 1988 were attempts to address the land issue. Under Marcos regime, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was ratified as the land redistribution program. Under the CARL, both public lands and private agricultural lands were targeted for redistribution to the farmers.

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesHowever, large tracts of land have not yet been allocated

two decades after the implementation of the program. Moreover, some lands instead of being redistributed to the farmers have been privatized and titled, thus exempting them from the program. The Yulo Sugar Estate in Calamba is one such case among many others. The poor redistribution of land in the Philippines is thus a result of the nature of its colonial history and the inefficient implementation of Agrarian Reform (by DAR) in the last three decades.

The peasants from SPI (Indonesia), AOP (Thailand), TFU (Taiwan), PARAGOS (Philippine) and representatives from La Via Campesina visited the farmers camped in front of DAR and joined the solidarity mission of PARAGOS. The farmers had camped for over a year since 2012. They struggled for the full implementation of the Agrarian Reform. Their action is actually a wakeup call to other Filipino farmers who expect the Agrarian Reform to be fully implemented before CARP ends in 2014. When the program ends the farmers will be evicted from their farmland together with their families to make way for people with political power. Large estates will also get the land from the government with ease.

At the camp which started on the 8th of October in 2012, we met many angry but determined farmers who desperately ask for the land redistribution and Agrarian Reform to be fully implemented. They have continuously been engaged in negotiations with the DAR officials for this to happen.

At the camp the PARAGOS organized a forum in which visiting delegates were invited to participate. The experiences of land grabbing in Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan and Philippine were shared and some similarilities identified particularly the pervasive nature of investor-friendly land policies in South-East Asia as well as in Taiwan. In Philippines, the most critical aspect of Agrarian Reform is the land redistribution issue.

Land Grabbing in the Philippines

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesDuring the forum, an ally of PARAGOS shared the

information that the policy structure of Agrarian Reform in Japan, Taiwan and Philippine are very similar as it originated from the same policy advisor, the United States of America. Philippine, however, is the only country that has failed to implement the Agrarian Reform because the strong resistance from the landowners and some government officials from the landed gentry (families). This could be read as the semi-feudal characteristics of political domain in Philippines which is in fact a great obstacle to fully implementation of the acquisition and redistribution of land to the rural proletariat to allow rural areas appropriate development on the basis of farmers’ livelihoods. Although the agrarian reform policy structure seems to be pro-farmers’ right to land, the intervention of landowners with political power and the investors has influenced the process and distorted its principles. The camp, in a way, demonstrates the determination of Filipino farmers to ask for concrete implementation of the agrarian reform. The land conversion has widely happened outside of Manila and it is only through people’s action that can counterbalance such government actions and ensure equitable land ownership of agricultural land

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesSelected land grab cases in the Philipines:

Calamba (Laguna Province)

The native people arrived between 1912 and 1916, and settled at Calamba village in Laguna. They tilled the land and mostly made a living from farming. The Yulo family arrived later in 1948. This family claimed ownership of about 22,249 hectares of land which they reportedly bought from Vicent Madirgal, a wealthy family. They displaced and evicted the native Filipinos from the land. The Yulo family, however, could not present official documentation to prove their ownership, but instead relied on their close relations with government officials to reconstituted the land title to self-justify their occupancy of the land. Native farmers were left landless and confronted with difficult living conditions, including being constantly threatened whenever they tried to organize and protect their properties. Another forum was organized by the local farmers and PARAGOS in Calamba, Laguna. The farmers had an opportunity to share their experiences of land grabbing, its history and their resistance. One farmer, stood up and said that, “We want to fight but we are not armed. Nobody can stop them from harassing [us] and demolishing our houses. We can only use the farming tools to go against them.” The situation in Calamba is quite tense. 

Land Grabbing in the Philippines  According to villagers and PARAGOS, of the 10,000 hectares of

agricultural land that is under the land redistributing project of the Agrarian Reform program, only 250 hectares of it has been given to the local farmers. This meant that each farmer could only get 1.4 hectares on average, a land size far below the minimum of 3.4 hectares required to support a family. As ka Jaime from PARAGOS reminded us and stressing the importance of the need for each household to hold at least 3.4 hectares: “If you have less than 1 hectare, you’re equal to landless”.

Besides the land that has been redistributed to Calamba farmers, which the Yulo family is contesting, the family owns other agricultural land on which they established a sugar estate in Calamba in the 1950s. They produce and export sugarcane to the United States of America, earning them a big fortune and political status. They converted the title of the land that should be redistributed to the farmers using their political power and influence. Besides that the Yulo family also controls the judiciary and the law enforcement systems in the Philipines. This has allowed the Yulo family to constantly harass the local farmers and at times to kill, as they did to the leader of the local farmer’s organization, KASAMACA, in April 23, 2013. The land struggles are life and death issues in Calamba as they threaten local farmers’ everyday life. The Yulo family and a property developer have also started forcing about 600 families in Calamba to vacate their properties to make way for a shopping mall construction project

Land Grabbing in the Philippines Hermosa Village, Bataan Province

We were impressed by Fe Andulan the first time we saw her at the camp in front of DAR where she was giving a speech. She illustrated the crisis of land grab in her village. She, almost in tears, talked about the fence erected around their farmland, which is guarded by patrolling security guards, and how the people in Sumalo live under the constant threat. Ka Fe Andulan is a woman farmer who organized SANAMABASU, an alliance of farmers’ organizations which fight against land grabbing by corporations.

Fe Andulan got married in 1980s and she moved to Sumalo with her husband. She led a typical village woman’s life in which farm work predominates until few years ago when the Litton family erected a fence to forbid the villagers from entering and accessing their agricultural lands. Fe Andulan gave us a guided us around Sumalo, and narrated the history about her village. Sumalo is one of the many Barangay (which means ‘village’ in English) in Province Bataan and is located in a peninsula around Manila Bay, west of Metro Manila. It is home to 400 households, with a population of about 1,000 people. Most of the villagers came from Cavite Province and started their cultivation in Sumalo in the 1940s and have been growing rice, corn, mangos, oranges and vegetables for a living for over half of a century.

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesThe land was grabbed by businessmen working together with

the local government officials in Calamba. The ownership of 222 hectares of land located in Sumalo was sold to Litton family’s business in 1979 for US$2,200 by the Department of Environment and Nature Resources (DENR). The government official acquired the ownership of the land in Sumalo through a court order, in which the land title was reconstituted based on unknown cadastral records which lacked pertinent information and signatures.

Litton estate initiated a process of “land claim” in Sumalo three years ago. Security guards employed by the Littons family were stationed in the village, and the agricultural land fenced off and farmers were barred from accessing their crops and fields. Some families had their houses burned down or demolished by the security guards. Fe Andulan led to and showed us the perimeter fence where we could see clearly the fields within the thick growth of grass. She pointed at the vast wilderness, and eagerly saying: ”There! That’s my farmland!”

In the past three years, the local farmers in Sumalo were forcibly evicted from their farmland. Consequently, their rights to grow crops and gather fruits were deprived, and this led to the loss of their livelihood source. Moreover, the villagers have been harassed and threatened continuously by Littons’ security guards

Land Grabbing in the Philippines  Recently, a father and son trying to harvest three

pieces of coconut within the fence were caught and dragged by the guards, and imprisoned by the police. Thus, some youth are now armed with machetes to protect and prevent themselves from being caught by the security guards.

In October 8th of 2012, local villagers from Sumalo along with farmers from Province Rizal started their protest camp in front of DAR to force the Secretary of DAR who has been pending their petition for more than one year, to resolve the issue. They demand the immediate implementation of CARL (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, also known as Republic Act No. 6657) and the allocation of the land. Only by implementing a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by the Department of Agrarian Reform, that the farmers can guarantee their food sovereignty. “We can abolish the title of the landowner through the implementation of CARP”, said ke Fe Andulan, ”and the solidarity among us is the only way that leads us to our farmland.”

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesEvaluation and Action Plan

Over the years, PARAGOS has involved itself in the struggles for the effective implementation of agrarian reform in the Philippines. The rights of farmers to access and till the land depend on the redistribution of agricultural land covered under CARP and DAR holds the keys to ensure the program is properly enforced and implemented. In the case of Kasamaca and Sumalo, the right of the farmers to cultivate their land is the only way they can ensure survival of their families. This can only be achieved if local farmers have access to and control over their land. It is clear that the agrarian reform initiated by the state, as in Taiwan and China, its success and outcomes depend mostly on political will of the government. CARP ends in August 2014 and if the current land issues are not resolved the crisis of conversion of the land titles and speculation by business working with some government officials will render many farmers landless and destitute.

Land Grabbing in the PhilippinesThe delegations from AOP, SPI and TFU then shared

their feelings and responses on the three-day visit as an evaluation of the solidarity mission. Delegates also committed to staying longer in each affected village so that they understand more the plight of the locals. We at the end of visit acknowledged the importance of such solidarity visits and how such exchanges play a critical role in strategizing to fight against the corporations which treat people with such violence. Such acts of land dispossession through land grabbing and the associated violence should be legally denounced and prevented. Delegates agreed to an action plan in which “Solidarity Visit” were identified as central to the fights human dignity and should be continued as a series so that the solidarity amongst us could be cemented, accumulated and maximized in the international level in the long run

http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/agrarian-reform-mainmenu-36/1568-land-grabbing-in-philippine

101 East- Philippines Land Grab- 24 Jan 08- Part 2 (VIDEO)

(PLAY SLIDE SHOW TO VIEW)

101 East- Philippines Land Grab- 24 Jan 08- Part 2 (VIDEO)

(PLAY SLIDE SHOW TO VIEW)

THE END(A Requirement in Basic Economics with Taxation

and Agrarian Reform)HARVEY DULAY ACOSTA