Land reform in the Philippines was a long-drawn-out process that for several decades failed to emancipate farmers from the bondage of tenancy.
Agrarian reform was unenforceable given the political clout of the absentee landlords and their own private armies.
It was not until the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. declared martial law in the Philippines that land reform was enforced under the dictum of “land for the actual tillers” meaning tenants. Conrado Estrella was Marcos first Minister of Agrarian Reform.
Marcos first placed tenanted rice and corn farms under land reform.
Affected landowners have only two options: voluntarily surrender their lands or the government takes over anyway. In both cases, the landlords are informed and are compensated based on existing property valuation in the locality or adjacent farms. The owners though were also given the option to retain 7 hectares of their tenanted lands.
Fast forward to when Corazon Cojuangco Aquino was installed as president, she placed the entire country under Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. She proceeded to scrap Marcos’ “Land for the actual tiller” dictum and replaced it with the populist “Land for the Landless” adage. That simply means, any Tom, Dick and Harry who does not own land is entitled to own one. And that was the start of gross injustice to the tenants and the beginning of dubious schemes and large-scale corruption in the Department.
A classic example of how tenant farmers were hoodwinked then and still are seeing is how CARP was used in the insidious attempt to exclude Hacienda Luisita, from operation land transfer.
The tenants protested against being made “co-owner” of the hacienda by way of giving them shares of stocks instead of certificates of land title.
The tenant-tillers rallied for their rights but faced heavily armed guards and war tanks. In a protest rally in Plaza Mendiola, they were mowed down by machine gun fires. Their quest reached the portals of the Supreme Court in protracted litigation until an uncompromising Chief Justice Renato Corona decided in their favor.
But it cost CJ Corona his career and finally his life. The landlords were on top of the pinnacle of power and provided the opiate in the halls of Congress. Corona was impeached. Only the late Senators Miriam Santiago and Joker Arroyo and Senator “Bongbong” Marcos voted against his impeachment.
What goes around comes around. Ferdinand Marcos now sits as President and the Agrarian Reform Secretary is a Conrado Estrella.
But unlike the land reform under Marcos Sr., CARP has become an instrument of corruption and deception. Some DAR officials are arbitrarily exercising power that is even beyond the power of Marcos and Estrella.
Here is a tale of woes of a family corporation that owns a ten-hectare livestock farm in Catigan, Davao City.
The head of the family (he died years ago) borrowed money from a bank, in addition to his retirement pay, to buy a piece of property where he and his children put up a poultry and cattle farm. They had since then put up a corporation.
They improved the facilities as they were to raise cattle and planted Guimaras mangoes. They applied for and were granted a P26 million loan. From the proceeds, they improved the livestock facilities. Today, they have about 40,000 broiler chickens (not counting the layers), and 30 Brahman cows and growing. They have several laborers in their livestock project. All was well and rosy.
Last week, however, their workers reported that there were intruders that forcibly entered the property and announced that they are the new owners. Thinking that the bank might have something to do with it, the farm manager ran to the bank but found out that the P26 million loan had been fully settled. What they missed somehow was to remove the encumbrance from the title.
So they proceeded to the Registry of Deeds where they discovered that their land title was already in the name of the Republic of the Philippines! The ROD also advised them that somebody had “deposited” P300,000 as payment for their 10-hectare livestock farm.
How this sorrowful mystery happened is beyond comprehension. Neither the Regional Office of DAR nor the Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officer of Davao City had approached any of the members of the corporation and neither have they sent a letter to the corporation that their property is subjected to land reform.
For a property with a loan value of P26 million to be acquired by the Republic of the Philippines for a measly sum of P300,000 is not only revolting, but it also reeks of fraud and corruption.
Any way you look at this it’s a highway robbery in broad daylight, not land reform.