INTRODUCTION

Amidst gusty neoliberal winds sweeping across continents, pro-redistributive reform forces within the Philippine state and society have been trying to keep the barn lights burning for agrarian reform, so to speak. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has entered into the most trying moment in its history. It has now to address highly contentious private estates where landlord opposition to reform is greatest, while the global and national free market-oriented context is becoming more hostile to redistributive reforms, like agrarian reform.

Twelve years into its implementation, CARP accomplished, among others, the following: i) redistributed 4.84 million hectares of both private and public lands, comprising 47 per cent of the country's total farmland and representing 60 per cent of total CARP scope; and ii) directly benefiting about 2.1 million rural poor households, that constitute roughly 41 per cent of the total peasant population. These achievements are fairly comparable to the major (non-socialist) land reforms in world history.

CARP's partial accomplishments must neither be dismissed as insignificant, as most critics do, nor be exaggerated as fully successful, as some government officials do. These two extreme views can also be broadly categorized as "everything is wrong with CARP," and "everything is right with CARP", respectively. Both assessment perspectives fail to capture the actual CARP status and the political dynamics that go with it. In fact, a good evaluation is somewhere in between. Looking through the lens of widespread pessimism, today's partial achievement is far beyond what had been earlier predicted. But viewing it from the perspective of strategic agrarian transformation, today's accomplishment is, at best, modest. This middle-ground perspective is important so that empirically-grounded political strategies toward full and meaningful agrarian reform implementation can build on previous achievements while striving to overcome weaknesses.

This article hopes to contribute toward strengthening the middle-ground position around the ongoing agrarian reform debate and struggle. The rest of this paper is divided, unevenly, into three sections: Section 1 analyzes CARP's targets and implementing mechanisms, Section 2 analyzes accomplishments, while Section 3 identifies key challenges.

1. TARGETS AND IMPLEMENTING MECHANISMS

A better understanding of CARP's accomplishments requires a good grasp of the program's targets and implementing mechanisms. These are discussed below.

1.1. Scope. CARP is a public policy that is neither revolutionary nor conservative. Conservative land reform program here is defined as a policy that is generally characterized by selective and limited reforms, focusing mainly on resettlement and usually excludes productive farms. CARP has expropriationary powers, which is rather rare in the policy world today dominated by free market thinking. In theory, CARP covers all agricultural lands in the Philippines, private and public, regardless of tenurial relations. Based on the original 1987 scope as shown in Table 1 below, CARP hopes to reform tenurial relations in the country's 10.3 million hectares farmland, which is one-third of the country's total land area. ³ CARP aspires to redistribute these to about four million landless and land-poor households, which is close to 80 per cent of the peasant population. It is to be noted that the average farm size in the country is about two hectares, while the land reform award ceiling is fixed at three hectares.

In addition, tenancy reform (through leasehold) is supposed to be implemented in farms below the retention 'ceiling', which is pegged at five hectares. Finally, private lands and some government-owned lands are to be redistributed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), while public alienable and disposable lands are for distribution by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Table 1. Original Scope of CARP (1987)

Source: Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of the Philippines, vols. 1 and 2 (Manila, 1988), cited in Riedinger, Jeffrey (1995). Agrarian Reform in the Philippines: Democratic Transitions and Redistributive Reform. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (NB: Idle and abandoned lands = private estates).

1.2. Exemptions. There are a number of exclusions guaranteed by CARP. The original ones cover areas such as military reservations, penal colonies, educational and research fields, "timberlands", and some church areas. Undeveloped hills with 18 degrees slope are also excluded. In the mid-1990s, further exemptions were introduced, namely, agricultural sectors that are "less dependent on land", e.g. poultry, livestock, saltbeds and fishponds.

1.3. Mechanisms in land acquisition and distribution. CARP requires compensation to the landlords and payment by peasant recipients. Land acquisition is a transaction between government and affected landlord. Landlord compensation is based on "just compensation" which, in turn, is computed based on various factors such as land productivity and tax declaration. ⁴ Meanwhile, land distribution is a transaction between government and peasant recipient. The peasant has to pay for the land based on the principle of "affordability". The gap between "just compensation" and "affordable price" is subsidized by government. ⁵

CARP has various acquisition modes for private lands. First, Operation Land Transfer (OLT) is the mechanism used for rice and corn lands under the Marcos (PD 27) land reform which was subsumed by CARP. The rest of the mechanisms are used for all nonrice and corn private lands. Second, devised in the hope of lessening landlord resistance to reform, the Voluntary-Offer-to-Sell (VOS) increases the cash portion in landlord's compensation by five per cent (compared to the compulsory mode) with a corresponding five per cent decrease in the bonds portion.

Third, another mode that aspires to count landlord cooperation to the program is Voluntary Land Transfer (VLT). VLT provides for the direct transfer of land to peasants under mutually agreed terms between peasants and landlords (but with payment terms not less favorable to peasants than if it were the government purchasing the land). Government's role is reduced to information provision and contract enforcement. Both VOS and VLT, however, are in the context of the generality of expropriation, i.e. if landlords refuse VOS or VLT, their estates will nonetheless be acquired by the state. This brings us to the last acquisition mode, i.e. Compulsory Acquisition (CA). Under CA, land is expropriated whether or not the landlord cooperates with the program.

Other issues are relevant. Stock Distribution Option (SDO) is a distinct mode designed for corporate farms. SDO does not involve physical land transfer of land and instead, distribution of corporate stocks to peasants is the mode of reform. In addition, the actual physical acquisition of some commercial farms (e.g. banana plantations) has been deferred for ten years [i.e. 1988 to 1998] for two main reasons: i) for the plantation owners to recoup their investments, and ii) to prepare farmworkers for the eventual plantation take-over. In June 1998 this deferment expired, and more or less 50,000 hectares of highly productive and modern plantations should begin to witness expropriation. ⁶

Furthermore, CARP allows for "leaseback" arrangement where lands awarded to peasants are, in turn and under mutually agreed terms, immediately put to a lease arrangement between peasant beneficiaries and investor (usually the former entity that controlled or owned the land). Finally, acquired lands can be transferred to individuals or cooperatives. An in between category was started under the administration of DAR Secretary Ernesto Garilao, namely, the concept of "mother or collective CLOA (Certificate of Land Ownership Award)". A collective CLOA has been designed to expedite the process of breaking the nexus between peasants and landlord, since individual parcelization of big properties may take time. "Individual splitting" of awarded land is supposed to take place right after the award.

1.4. Evolving Scope. In January 1996, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, the inter-agency and multisectoral body in-charge of the overall implementation of CARP, came up with a revised scope of CARP. This is part of what the Garilao DAR called "data clean up". Table 2 below presents the current working scope.

A number of issues have to be raised regarding CARP scope. First, the scope was decreased by one-fifth, from 10.3 to 8.064 million hectares. Second, the largest chunk taken out comes from the DENR coverage of public lands, where two-fifths of its original scope was slashed. ⁷ There was no clear reason given to the public as to why the cut was made and as to where the more than two million hectares went. Third, while lands under DAR increased by more than 12 per cent, the increase was accounted for by government-owned land. ⁸ The DAR scope in government-owned land more than doubled. ⁹ Fourth, the DAR's scope in private land decreased by close to 10 per cent. ¹⁰ While it is understandable that CARP scope will constantly evolve during the implementation process, still, government owes the public a full explanation of the 1996 changes in CARP scope and the actual process and method taken toward these changes. Finally, the land reform scope in private lands is three million hectares, accounting for almost two-fifths of the total scope. This is low compared to what should actually be covered by the reform. A number of factors can help explain for the current

Table 2. (Adjusted) Scope of CARP, By Agency and Land Type

Source: Department of Agrarian Reform

low coverage in private estates: i) retention limit was set at five hectares plus three hectares for every qualified heir of the landlord [15 years old and above in 1988 and is willing to farm]; ii) the length of time of the reform has given many landlords the needed time to illegally subdivide or convert the use of their lands, technically evading land reform; iii) in the mid-1990s, a new round of exemptions was enacted into law, taking some agricultural lands that are comparatively "less land-dependent" out from CARP coverage (e.g. fishponds, livestock, and poultry) where labor-centered reforms are instead instituted (e.g. mandatory production and profit sharing). Using Putzel's data, which is based on the 1988 national land registration, there should still be close to five million hectares of private lands to be covered by CARP (1992:29), despite retention rights by landlords.

2. ACCOMPLISHMENTS

2.1 Land acquisition and distribution accomplishment. CARP has to be implemented within the structural and institutional constraints and limitations of the Philippine political setting. In fact, it has been implemented within the very political and institutional set-up it hopes to partly change. The analysis of Franco (forthcoming) of the Philippine 1986-1987 regime transition and current rural politics is useful in putting into context the political and institutional backdrop against which CARP policymaking and implementation have been carried out. Franco explains that while there was an opening for democratization especially at the national level through competitive elections, the local rural polity continues to be marked by a patchwork of "local authoritarian enclaves." ¹¹ Moreover, Lara and Morales (1990) earlier conclude that CARP constitutes an evidence of the "blocked" transition to democracy in the Philippines in 1986-1988. ¹² Meanwhile, Putzel (1992) argues about the captivity of the Philippine state by the elites resulting to the adoption of a less radical type of land reform despite the relatively favorable political setting in 1986-1987. ¹³

Given all the analyses on CARP, it is commonly agreed that CARP is a compromise public policy that is largely reflective of the actual balance of state and societal forces during the policymaking process (and even during the implementation phase). Thus, most critics of CARP were justified during the early period of CARP implementation to argue that there is not much substantial accomplishment to be expected from CARP. But policies and politics are not static. During the implementation, policies are brought to the crucible of state-society relations where policy processes and outcomes depend on various factors. Policies and related institutions themselves are constantly transformed through conflict.

It should be within this framework that CARP implementation process can be better understood. For example, after twelve years, contrary to what most observers earlier predicted, CARP has been able to achieve something substantial. Tables 3 and 3.1 below show CARP accomplishment over time. Using the data in the tables below, a number of initial observations can be made. First, by the end of 1999, CARP has been able to redistribute 4.84 million hectares of land that account for 60 per cent of the target. ¹⁴ Second, this accomplishment is roughly 47 per cent of the country's total farmland. Third, directly benefiting from the land redistribution are more or less 2.1 million rural poor households (more or less 1.5 million under DAR and 0.6 million under DENR) who constitute about 41 per cent of the total peasant population. ¹⁵ Finally, half of CARP scope in private landholdings has already been redistributed.

Table 3. DAR's Land Redistribution Accomplishment, 1972 to 1999
Area in Hectares; By Mode of Acquisition

[OLT = Operation Land Transfer under Marcos' PD 27 (rice and corn lands); GOL = Government-owned Lands; PAL = Private Lands; VOS = Voluntary Offer-to-Sell; VLT = Voluntary Land Transfer; CA = Compulsory Acquisition].
Source: Department of Agrarian Reform

Table 3.1. DENR Accomplishment in Public Alienable and Disposable and Forest Lands

2.2. Philippine land redistribution (partial) achievement in comparative perspective. Before proceeding to a more critical interrogation of the data above, it is useful to make a comparative glance at the initial Philippine agrarian reform achievement vis-à-vis land reform performance in some Latin American countries. For historical reasons, similarities in agrarian structures and land reform initiatives between Latin America and the Philippines exist. A glance at Table 4 reveals that despite all criticisms against CARP, and despite serious weaknesses in the program and problems in implementation, the current CARP accomplishment has already put the Philippine agrarian reform side by side with countries that have undergone substantial land reforms. But it is important to note some relevant comparative contexts.

The first issue is about public and private lands. In most Latin American countries, land reform means reform in private lands. In general, there are no more substantial volume of public lands in most countries in that continent after massive private land titling during the colonial era, except perhaps for some "preserved" indigenous lands. In a few countries where public lands were extensive (e.g. Brazil, Venezuela, and Ecuador), "colonization", which is basically a resettlement program, was resorted to by governments (e.g. three-fourths of land reform accomplishment in Venezuela and Ecuador was in public lands -- Dorner, 1992 and Zevallos, 1989, respectively). The situation is different in the Philippines, where numerous public lands

Table 4. Land Reform Accomplishments in Some Selected Countries

have actually been under the effective control of elites (local and foreign), despite the absence of legal titles. Peasants actually tilling these lands have maintained various tenurial relations with these elites. More than half of CARP scope is in public land (62 per cent), but this excludes ancestral domains. Most CARP critics lament the fact that CARP's accomplishment focused on public lands, implicitly or explicitly suggesting that meaningful reforms do not occur in public lands.

Different from the Latin American context, many public lands in the Philippines have seen highly contentious processes of CARP coverage precisely because of deeply entrenched private interests. A few examples are: countless cattle ranches on government-owned lands leased by private landlords, vast tracts of agricultural lands effectively controlled by landlords through "timberlands" or "logging concessions" (when these are in fact planted to other crops like coconut), and huge plantations planted to export crops. Therefore, having these lands covered under land reform should not be taken for granted, as some critics do. ²¹ Exploitative tenurial relations are being reformed in these types of land in the Philippine context. In fact, land reform in these lands has never been easy. In cases where reform was successful, they proved to be hard-won victories by peasants (e.g. portion of Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija); in cases where lands are not yet covered, struggles continue to be uphill battle (e.g. Davao Penal Colony in Mindanao). Hence, it is valid to compare the Philippine land reform accomplishment that combines private and public lands with countries presented in Table 4.

The second issue is about the character of political setting within which land reforms were carried out. Based on Table 4, top performing reforms were carried out under revolutionary settings (e.g. Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia and Nicaragua), by elected radical socialist groups (e.g. Chile, or in Kerala, India), or by military dictatorships (e.g. Peru). Some other successful land reform experiences where implemented by external forces under special geopolitical historical juncture (e.g. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan). The Philippines stands out as among the better performers in land reforms carried out under a less-than-democratic national political setting that is neither revolutionary nor fully democratic nor dictatorial.

The third issue is that CARP is among the very few redistributive land reforms being carried out during the neoliberal onslaught . Most land reform initiatives were carried out after the second world war (with the exception of Mexico which started in 1915) and the peak of initiatives was in the 1960s and 1970s. Global and national political contexts were relatively favorable to agrarian reform then, as compared to the current context for the Philippines today. It is also in today's world where a competing land reform paradigm from the neoliberals is coherently put forward, i.e. market-assisted land reform (see Deininger, 1999), unlike before where there was broad consensus on the concept of expropriative redistributive land reform. ²² Within the current batch of land reforms (meaning land reforms carried out since the early 1980s), the Philippine CARP is a far better performer compared to the rest, e.g. those in Zimbabwe and El Salvador which both started in 1980, or to post-apartheid South Africa, or to tumultuous Brazil. The fact that the Philippine land reform, being implemented under the most hostile neoliberal context, is also among the league of better performers historically is worth closer examination.

2.3. Types of lands and acquisition modes. For the purpose of knowing whether or not CARP has advanced since its implementation, the initial observations above offer useful pointers that suggest a relatively substantial achievement of the program. But for the objective of better understanding past processes to shed light in grappling with present processes and challenges, further interrogation of the accomplishment data is necessary. The underlying issues examined in the succeeding discussion revolve around the types of land covered and the acquisition modes employed. Further disaggregation of Tables 3 and 3.1 above (through Tables 5 and 6 below) is useful, even when it covers only the DAR accomplishments.

Table 5. DAR's Land Distribution, By Land Type (as of Dec 1999)

Calculated from Table 3

Table 6. Private Lands Redistributed, By Mode of Acquisition (as of Dec 1999)

Calculated from Table 3

Further interrogation of data presented in Tables 2, 3, 3.1, 5 and 6 reveals a number of important insights. First, half of total DAR redistribution accomplishment is in private estates (which in turn, constitutes half of the total targeted private landholdings), contrary to what some observers believe that DAR's land distribution achievement is mainly in public lands. Second, almost one-third is accounted for by nonrice and corn private landholdings. This is contrary to popular impression that accomplishment in private lands happened mainly in rice and corn lands (the latter accounts for only less than one-fifth of total accomplishment). Third, accomplishment in government-owned lands exceeds target. It is most likely that accounting of government-owned lands are constantly changing (in fact shuffling of land coverage between DAR and DENR occurs regularly). Nevertheless, this issue needs closer examination.

Fourth, Compulsory Acquisition (CA) mode has so far been used sparingly by government, accounting for close to only one-fifth of total nonrice and corn private lands acquired. The Voluntary Offer-to-Sell (VOS) accounts for more than one-third. It is important to note here that there is an essential difference between VOS during the scandalous years of the Aquino administration and the VOS transactions under the Garilao DAR and onward. Many VOS activities in recent years are actually last-minute compromise between government, landlord and peasants. When landlords realize that their efforts to evade land reform are futile, they normally negotiate for better terms in compensation package that are offered under VOS. Hence, many highly contentious private estates actually ended up being expropriated under VOS.

What is alarming, and this is the Fifth, is the rise of Voluntary Land Transfer (VLT) as what seems to be the most favored acquisition mode. VLT-processed "redistribution" accounts for the single biggest acquisition mode: two out of five nonrice and corn private lands (and in turn accounts for 13 per cent of total CARP accomplishment).

2.4. Agrarian Reform Community (ARC). The main strategy of government in post-land redistribution farm and beneficiary development is the Agrarian Reform Community (ARC). Launched by Secretary Garilao in 1993, ARC is a barangay (village) at the minimum or a cluster of contiguous barangays where there is a critical mass of farmers or farmworkers who have been awarded lands or are awaiting the full implementation of land redistribution. Realizing that DAR funds are limited, the Garilao DAR opted for a strategy to concentrate limited resources to specific targeted communities, hoping for eventual spill-over effects.

Today, about 1,000 ARCs were officially launched nationwide, covering more or less one million hectares of lands. The ARC strategy also hopes for, and actually has been able to rally up, foreign-assisted projects. It has to be noted that foreign donor community opted to stay away from CARP during the scandal-ridden Aquino period. DAR Secretary Garilao was able to revive the confidence of foreign donor community and left behind more or less PhP 25 billion (roughly US$600 million, equivalent to half of total CARP budget) in foreign-assisted projects when he exited from office in June 1998. Some of the major projects are only starting to be implemented today.

A number of issues have to be pointed out. First, the ARC strategy is inherently limited in coverage. The officially declared ARCs nationwide cover only about one million hectares of land. Hence, more than 3.8 million hectares of redistributed lands are outside this programmed intervention and are left on their own. Second, majority of the ARCs do not have actual on-going projects to date. Estimates show that only about 20 per cent of total ARCs have actual substantial projects being implemented, while more than half of all ARCs have "weak" peasant organizations (Franco, 1998). ²³

Third, other more generously funded government agencies, like the Department of Agriculture (which has a yearly budget for agricultural development that is 15 times than the beneficiary and farm development budget of DAR), are not systematically locating their intervention in ARCs. Fourth, while there are limitations in ARC as a strategy, it has also contributed profoundly to the cause of agrarian reform: i) offered concrete area for co-operation with the international donor community; ii) some well-performing ARCs have been used by DAR to argue for the case of agrarian reform and support for it before the yearly lobby for budget allocation, and iii) helps "legitimize" and shield peasant claim makers in local communities from continued attacks by anti-reform forces.

In sum, while ARC as a strategy has helped the cause of agrarian reform in some ways, it cannot deliver the needed widespread and systematic development intervention in land reformed communities. Sources of support, other than foreign aid, must be mobilized. Hence, inter-agency coherence is extremely necessary, especially because other agencies are far more generously funded than DAR.

In addition, local government units must increasingly be drawn toward assuming substantial responsibility in making redistributed lands work productively. In recent years, more state funds are allocated to local government units since the country embarked on decentralization several years ago. The Local Government Code of 1992 mandates the national government to directly channel 40 per cent of national internal revenues to local government units. The target allocation has not been fully achieved so far, but substantial increases in budget re-allocation to local governments have been registered. By 1997, for example, 16 per cent of the total national budget (PhP476.2 B, or US$11.2 B), amounting to PhP75.7 B (close to US$2 B) has been directly allocated to local governments (although 23 per cent of this goes to cities). This percentage share more than doubled the 1992 share of local governments at 6.7 per cent, while in quantitative terms, the amount almost quadrupled. (Alonzo, 1999:201). ²⁴

2.5. Other related issues. There are five other related issues. First, the only known Stock Distribution Option (SDO) case is the 6,400-hectare sugarcane Hacienda Luisita owned by ex-President Cojuangco-Aquino's family, one of the biggest landlords in the country. The Luisita SDO depressed the value of land while overpriced the value of non-land assets. In the end, a small percentage of the corporation was awarded to farmworkers. Today, living standards of the farmworkers did not register any significant improvement, while the corporation has been converting portions of the hacienda into non-agricultural uses. The law mandates that SDOs have to be monitored periodically by government and any violations of SDO rules are sufficient grounds for the recall of SDO agreements and the physical acquisition of the land by government. So far, there is no serious monitoring of the Luisita case, despite reports of the disadvantageous conditions of farmworker-beneficiaries. But contrary to earlier predictions, SDO has never been adopted elsewhere.

Second, the deferment of land acquisition in commercial farms, totaling to about 50,000 hectares, but mainly in banana plantations, expired in June 1998. Deferred farms should have been acquired since then, but so far the process proved to be highly contentious especially when local landed elites who have close tie ups with national and foreign elites are mounting serious obstacles to reform. But the farmworkers have launched widespread and sustained collective actions to expropriate the plantations.

Third, leaseback agreements were forged in the past, especially in some important plantations controlled by multinational companies like Dole and Del Monte. After several years of such arrangements, however, farmworker-beneficiaries began to rethink continuation of this type of contract and are more inclined now to pursue family farming kind of production. The 9,000-hectare Dole pineapple plantation in South Cotabato is a classic case of beneficiaries having been shortchanged in the deal.

Fourth, tenancy reform through leasehold is supposed to effect tenurial reforms in farms under the five-hectare ceiling. This means recasting social relations in more than two million hectares of farmland, involving about one million rural poor households. Leasehold has a potentially powerful anti-poverty impact. For example, many tenants in coconut farms are under tersyuhan arrangement (two-thirds share to landlord; one-third to peasant). Leasehold requires an arrangement based on three-fourths share for peasant and one-fourth for landlord, thereby doubling the income of poor peasants without much public spending. But to date achievement in leasehold remains negligible.

Fifth, what was conceived as a transitory scheme of immediately breaking the nexus between landlords and peasants, "collective CLOAs", in many cases, have failed to deliver immediate, parcelized plots to peasant-beneficiaries. This has been causing serious problems among peasants in terms of identification of individual farms to begin production activities. Finally, peasants and their allies continue to launch collective actions geared toward recovering excluded lands and bringing them back to CARP coverage. There are several cases when cattle ranches, timberlands, military reservations, fishponds, and other "escapee lands" were brought back to the scope and subjected to redistribution, demonstrating the highly dynamic nature of the agrarian reform process.

2.6. Three periods in CARP implementation. After an overview of the aggregated CARP accomplishment, it is useful to look into the historical development of program implementation. In this paper, CARP implementation is divided into three periods, namely: a) the period of scandalous years and anemic performance, b) the era of relative momentum and modest success, and c) the most difficult period. It is necessary to elaborate with the objective of putting into proper historical and political context the current processes and difficulties in agrarian reform implementation. The succeeding discussion focuses on DAR accomplishment.

2.6.1. The period of scandals and anemic performance (1987-June 1992, Aquino Administration). During this period, accomplishment was 848,518 hectares, accounting for a little over one-fourth of the overall DAR land redistribution output. Looking into the accomplishment during this period, one can find that: i) 43.3 per cent is in rice and corn; ii) nearly half is accounted for by government-owned lands; iii) only one-tenth is accounted for by nonrice and corn private lands; iv) about one-sixth of nonrice and corn total private lands is acquired through compulsory acquisition; v) voluntary-offer-to-sell (VOS) accounts for nearly two-thirds of output in nonrice and corn private lands; vi) voluntary land transfer (VLT) accounts for close to one-fourth of nonrice and corn private estates; and vii) the Aquino administration spent more than one-third of the total original CARP budget for its accomplishment (PhP 17B out of PhP 50 B).

Hence, nearly all accomplishments during this period come from the "less contentious" components of CARP, with rice and corn lands combined with government-owned lands accounting for 90.4 per cent. Most nonrice and corn private estates were acquired through the "less contentious" acquisition modes of VOS and VLT.

A number of factors can help explain the anemic performance in CARP implementation during this period. First, because of a series of public scandals in the CARP process within this period, the DAR had four different secretaries, failing to gather momentum in pushing for land reform. Second, aside from scandalous real estate deals within the framework of CARP, one of the most significant "achievements" of this period was the infamous stock distribution option in President Aquino's Hacienda Luisita. Ex-President Aquino was the first landlord to have evaded CARP in the grandest scale, creating a profound negative atmosphere for the cause of agrarian reform. Third, the national political situation was very unstable punctuated regularly by numerous military coup d' etat attempts, while the macro-economic situation was faring badly.

Fourth, autonomous NGOs and peasant organizations continued to campaign against CARP partly because the DAR bureaucracy refused to work with them. The DAR bureaucracy during this period, except during the short period of Secretary Abad, opted to work solely with state co-opted, uncritical societal groups. Finally, the single most important social movement group in agrarian reform front in terms of mobilizable base, the national-democratic group, remained largely solid against CARP and unwilling to engage the state within the framework of reform.

2.6.2. The period of relative momentum and modest success (July 1992 - June 1998, Ramos Administration). The administration of President Fidel Ramos witnessed a surge in CARP implementation, achieving more than twice what the previous administration had accomplished, with 1.9 million hectares of land. The achievement during this period accounts for almost two-thirds of the overall DAR land distribution output. But like its predecessor, the DAR led by Secretary Garilao focused mainly on the less contentious components of CARP using less contentious acquisition modes, although toward the end of its term, it began to confront the more contentious parts of the program.

It is useful to dissect the accomplishment during this period: i) a little over half of the accomplishment is in government-owned lands; ii) rice and corn lands account for one-fourteenth; iii) nonrice and corn private lands account for close to two-fifths; iv) a little over one-sixth of nonrice and corn private lands has been acquired through compulsory acquisition; v) voluntary-offer-to-sell (VOS) accounts for a little more than one-third of nonrice and corn private estates; vi) voluntary land transfer (VLT) accounts for nearly half (46.68 per cent) of nonrice and corn private lands acquired; and vii) the Ramos administration spent just a little over half of the total CARP budget (PhP 27 B out of PhP 50 B).

Thus, the Garilao DAR has maintained the tradition of its predecessor in focusing on the less contentious landholdings and acquisition modes. At this point, the issue of "contentiousness" has to be clarified briefly. A matter of degree, contentiousness here is taken in a relational way, i.e. some types of lands and acquisition modes compared to others. Rice and corn and public lands are contentious lands, but compared to commercial farms, for example, they are less contentious. Riedinger (1995:203) explains the reasons why rice and corn landlords have been politically weakened over time. Land reform in these lands has not been easy and automatic; political conflicts have been core part of the process. In another plane, VOS has proven to be not very voluntary in practice, and acquisition process under this mode has not been easy and automatic either. But when compared to the compulsory acquisition (CA) mode, VOS proves to be less contentious.

Despite some problematic issues, like the surge in VLT transaction, it is during this period that the agrarian reform process began to be invigorated. The Garilao administration's encouraging performance can be explained partly by a number of factors. First, the Ramos administration was able to stabilize the political situation of the country, and invigorate the national economy. Second, Secretary Garilao brought in a number of NGO and political activists to occupy key positions within the bureaucracy undermining the traditional hold of conservative forces within the department. Third, the Garilao DAR carried out widespread and sustained re-training and re-tooling campaigns among the department's employees and officials. Fourth, the Garilao DAR was able to revive the interest and confidence of foreign donor community in CARP.

Fifth, Garilao was able to forge a two-way relationship with the Office of the President that gave the DAR secretary the confidence to implement the agrarian reform policy (but not in all occasions since other Office of the President actors were able to subvert the program from time to time). Sixth – and perhaps the most crucial factor – Garilao has correctly identified the importance of working closely with autonomous peasant and non-government organizations rather than the traditional state co-opted groups. It is at this point when the Garilao DAR became active player in what has been called the "sandwich" or Bibingka strategy in land reform implementation – the political strategy of combining initiatives by state reformists "from above" with pressures from social mobilizations "from below." ²⁵

This has become possible, and this is the Seventh, after the 1992 collapse of the Communist Party-controlled national-democratic rural social movements. The bulk of the corps of cadres of the national-democratic rural social movement decided to abandon the outright opposition framework vis-à-vis agrarian reform and seriously steered along the difficult path of critical engagement with the state. Toward the end of the Garilao administration, an unprecedented breadth in the broad rural social movements within the "critical engagement" framework has become notable.

The different factors cited above contributed toward achieving relative momentum in the agrarian reform process that led to modest, but profoundly encouraging, success. While these factors help explain the modest success during the Garilao period, other factors have to be mentioned when looking at the more strategic contribution of the Garilao DAR to the agrarian reform process. First, the Garilao administration can be credited for actively working to ensure the continuity of CARP beyond 1998, the year when CARP should have ended after ten years of implementation. A new law was passed in February 1998 that mandates for the completion of CARP within another ten years, or until 2008.

Second, the Garilao DAR helped institutionalize (formally and informally) the usually conflict-ridden interface between the DAR and autonomous peasant and nongovernment organizations. Third, this period has also seen the functioning of the legal arm of DAR, albeit still relatively weak to date. Finally, breaking the inertia it inherited from the Aquino administration, the Garilao DAR passed on the program administration to the current DAR leadership with vibrant state-society political dynamics relatively favorable to the cause of agrarian reform.

2.6.3. The most difficult period in CARP implementation (July 1998 – present, Estrada Administration). The Ramos administration was able to stabilize the agrarian reform front, got the momentum to implement the program and achieved modest success. But since the previous administrations almost completed the less contentious components of CARP, what remain to be implemented are the most contentious components now confronting pro-reform forces within the state and in society.

Today, the DAR, under the leadership of political and NGO activist Horacio Morales Jr., has to contend almost solely with the most contentious private estates.

The 1.6 million hectares balance the Morales DAR inherited from its predecessor is comprised of coconut lands (75 per cent of), sugar haciendas (15 per cent), deferred commercial plantations (five per cent), while the other five per cent is in remaining rice and corn lands. Landlords are intensifying resistance to reform and are using various tactics of legal and illegal intimidation and coercion. In addition, with the financial crisis, yearly budget allocation becomes even more difficult. The burden of making productive close to five million hectares of land is also the principal responsibility of the current DAR administration (at least from the public perception). Indeed, the agrarian reform process in the Philippines has just entered into the most trying moment in its history.

To understand better the historical, institutional and political context of the current stage in agrarian reform, Table 7 below is constructed. It shows the land reform performance of four different regimes in terms of land types covered and acquisition modes employed. Again, the focus of discussion is on DAR accomplishment.

Looking into the initial achievement of the two-year old Morales DAR, we can find the following. First, one-twentieth of its accomplishment is accounted for by rice and corn lands, substantially less than the overall share of one-sixth by this land type (and compared to Aquino era at 43.3 per cent and Ramos period at 7.5 per cent). Second, government-owned lands account for one-third, far less than the general share of a little more than half of this land category.

Table 7. Comparative Perspective in Land Reform Performance,
By Regime, 1972-1999, Under DAR

Third, the politically most contentious nonrice and corn private lands account for a huge three-fifths share in the Morales DAR accomplishment, compared to the same land type's overall share of less than one-third. This is also six times than the Aquino's output and almost double than the Ramos's performance in the same land category. If rice and corn lands are combined with all private lands, the total is almost two-thirds of total lands redistributed, compared to the overall average of a little less than half.

It is interesting to note, however, that while the Morales DAR established a break from its predecessors' concentration on less contentious lands (certainly due to lack of choice), it is following the Garilao DAR's choices of less contentious acquisition modes. Fourth, voluntary-offer-to-sell (VOS) accounts for more than one-third (38.18 per cent) of total nonrice and corn private lands acquired, which is almost the same as the general VOS share. This is significantly less than the Aquino's 61.63 per cent, but almost the same as the Ramos's 36.21 per cent.

Fifth, voluntary land transfer (VLT) continues to be a favored acquisition mode under the Morales DAR, accounting for more than one-third – but still lower than the general VLT average of two-fifths. But this is a lot lower than the Ramos's nearly half, although higher than Aquino's close to one-fourth. Moreover, while it is apparent that compulsory acquisition (CA) seems to be a less preferred acquisition mode, CA-processed redistribution witnessed substantial increase. Under the Morales DAR, CA corners one-fourth of total nonrice and corn private lands acquired, as against the general CA share of less than one-fifth. This is also significantly higher than the Ramos's one-sixth, or Aquino's one-seventh.

Agrarian reform in the Philippine, as elsewhere, has always been a contentious political process, but especially during this current period, the contentiousness of the process has greatly intensified. This can be seen in a number of ways. First, landlords use more often than previously various legal and illegal forms of intimidation and coercion against rural poor claim makers and DAR personnel.

There are a few thousand beneficiaries who were awarded lands but could not physically occupy the lands because of landlord resistance. Landlords have also resorted to the "criminalization" of agrarian reform claim making activities, as for example beneficiaries who tried to harvest coconuts inside the supposedly reformed lands are being slapped with charges of theft before civilian courts. Some landlords have been trying to expel potential beneficiaries from the land, as what the Floirendos in Davao del Norte are currently doing. Of course, these landlord actions are met with militant responses from the peasants and their allies.

Second, some landlord-friends of President Estrada have been trying to "cash in" for their support for the electoral campaign of the president by negotiating for the exemption of their lands from land reform, or by having "special arrangements" under the agrarian reform program. One example is Danding Cojuangco who, after "giving" to farmworkers "his" more than 4,000 hectares of land in Negros Occidental, wants to strike a special joint venture arrangement with the beneficiaries. To date, there is not yet any negotiated deal because the Morales DAR refuses to accept the terms of Cojuangco's proposed joint venture, especially with regard the issue of land title. The DAR is firmly opposed against putting the land titles (CLOAs) of beneficiaries as equity in the joint venture, because if this happens, so the DAR argues, the beneficiaries can lost their land in the event of the corporation's bankruptcy.

One crucial move done by the Morales DAR was to sign a new administrative order and policy, called Magkasaka (aka "corporative"), purportedly to promote private sector participation in making awarded lands productive. Many groups are seriously alarmed about the possible dangers in promoting such kinds of economic undertakings in land reform communities (although this is not really new because CARP has promoted similar joint venture initiatives such SDO and leaseback). But in the succeeding polemical debate on the new policy, one crucial issue has been consistently missed: beneficiaries' land titles. Regardless of the real intentions behind the new policy, one effect of such is that: a) physical land transfer to peasants is assured, and b) beneficiaries' land titles cannot be put up as equity. Unless the new policy is repealed, the Danding Cojuangco Negros land deal cannot legally push through. This new policy has, intentionally or otherwise, sealed one important loophole in CARP.

Third, several multinational companies and big landlords engaged in plantation agriculture have been trying to use CARP to their advantage and at the expense of farmworkers. For example, Dole tries to manipulate legal and political process in order to renew a leaseback contract with more than 7,000 farmworker-beneficiaries who are now owners of the more than 9,000-hectare pineapple plantation in South Cotabato. The plantation was redistributed in 1989 and immediately after, a 10-year leaseback contract was forged. And within the period of 10 years, Dole retrenched from work more than 3,000 farmworker-beneficiaries. Dole paid a very low lease rent of about PhP5,000 (US$125) per year per hectare (i.e. per beneficiary) from 1989 to 1999. Dole wants a new leaseback arrangement that would secure its control over the land for another 25 years, with an offer to increase the lease rent, from PhP5,000 to P7,500 (or from US$125 to $187). Majority of the beneficiaries, especially those retrenched, refuses to agree and wants direct control over their individual parcel of land. The conflict is still unfolding.

Moreover, big plantation owners, especially in the banana sector, continue to try to circumvent the law. It must be recalled that the deferment of land acquisition of these plantations expired last June 1998 and should now be redistributed to farmworkers. Plantation owners have been systematically maneuvering through various ways, such as expelling farmworkers from plantations before and even after June 1998. The administrative order that the Morales DAR passed (AO 9 s. of 1998) puts retrenched farmworkers back into the pool of potential beneficiaries, against the will of most plantation owners. Most of the retrenched farmworkers were active leaders and members of militant unions but were retrenched between 1988 and 1998 as part of the plantation owners' scheme to rid their companies of land and profit share claim makers. Plantation owners, who are eyeing for "special" post-redistribution joint venture arrangements do not want to deal with the politically militant farmworkers. Hence, despite the passage of Morales' AO 9, which categorically calls for the immediate expropriation of deferred commercial farms, the struggle for land remains an uphill battle, as seen in the plantations controlled by highly influencial elites like the Floirendos, Ayalas, and Lorenzos, as well as a number of multinational companies like Dole.

Fourth, decentralization has empowered local government units which are in many localities heavily influenced by local landed elites. Hence, one unintended outcome of decentralization is further empowerment of local landed elites. In recent years, land use conversions (to nonfarm uses), as a way to evade land reform, have been facilitated through local government units which are authorized to reclassify agricultural lands to other uses. Local government units are increasingly drawn into the land reform conflict.

Fifth, the budget allotted for the completion of CARP under the new 1998 law is PhP 50B ($1.25 B), a little less than half than what is needed which is PhP 111B ($2.77B). But this budget has to be allocated by Congress on a yearly basis. To make the situation worse, some anti-land reform actors within the Congress are able to cut the DAR budget every year. For example, for 1999 budget, there was almost zero allotment for the acquisition of new lands. DAR managed to accomplish more than 100,000 hectares mainly by squeezing savings from different programs within the department.

For year 2000, the proposed budget of PhP 1.2 B for the acquisition of (175,000 hectares) new lands was cut by half. A staunch anti-land reform senator, John Osmeña, who comes from a big landlord family in Cebu and a close ally of President Estrada, has figured prominently in the budget cuts. The main argument used to cut budget has always been that DAR should not engage in acquiring new lands until it is able to assist millions of beneficiaries who already received lands but not the necessary support services. Pro-reform actors have to come up with more convincing counter-arguments.

Sixth, given all the difficulties being faced by CARP, the neoliberals have been eyeing for the eventual halt of CARP and are pushing for the shift instead to the neoclassical scheme of "market-assisted land reform." Led by World Bank experts, the scheme, which is based on "willing seller-willing buyer" principle has been peddled since the Garilao period, but was rejected by the previous administration. Today, the proposal is being resurrected. The Morales DAR, in general, is not in line with the fundamental principles of the proposed market-oriented land transaction, but is willing to engage the World Bank on the level of experimental study, hoping that fresh funds can come in with the scheme. Nevertheless, the bottomline of the Morales DAR is reportedly against using the market-oriented approach as alternative to CARP.

Finally, many of the provinces with the most backlogs in land redistribution are areas where the autonomous peasant and nongovernment groups are not based significantly. The uneven accomplishment of CARP and the uneven presence of pro-agrarian reform peasant and nongovernment organizations across geographic locations occur against the backdrop of the ever-present anti-reform forces.

In sum, Secretary Morales started on better institutional foundation when he assumed office in mid-1998, as compared to when Secretary Garilao took the DAR leadership in mid-1992 amidst the debris of scandals and widespread inertia. The current DAR administration, however, is embedded within the political, economic and fiscal contexts that proved to be most hostile to redistributive reforms, like agrarian reform. Completing implementation of at least CARP's land redistribution component is the most difficult challenge addressed not only to the Morales DAR but to the broader pro-reform forces within the state and society.

3. CHALLENGES

There are difficult challenges today and in the near future confronting pro-reform groups within the state and in society. These challenges are organized into six clusters of broadly distinct but interrelated issues. The ultimate accomplishment and strategic impact of agrarian reform in the country will depend largely on the resolution of the key questions outlined below.

3.1. Completion of land redistribution component by June 2004. The land redistribution component of CARP must be finished by June 2004, the end of the Estrada administration's term of office. Prolonging CARP implementation and subjecting it to another national regime transition may be too risky politically. But this task is not easy. It will require several crucial factors, some of which are discussed below.

First, given the more or less 1.2 million hectares of highly contentious private landholdings scheduled for acquisition and redistribution, completion of the land reform component within the next four years will require a yearly average acquisition-redistribution output of 300,000 hectares. Historically, this annual average was achieved only in a few years during the Ramos administration but which were focused on the less contentious landholdings. But just because this level of output was not achieved in the past does not mean that it cannot be accomplished today.

Second, the current trend in yearly Congress budget allocation for the acquisition of new lands hovers around a target of 100,000 hectares annually. Hence, aspiring to acquire and redistribute 300,000 hectares per year will require tripling of the yearly budget allocation by Congress. This can be achieved only if: i) no less than President Estrada himself seriously push for sufficient fund allocation and block the "land-reform-budget-cut-initiatives" of some of his close allies in Congress; ii) more widespread, intensive and consistent lobby and mobilization by rural social movements; iii) broader and active support by pro-reform forces within Congress; and iv) supportive media projection of the issue. The issue is not whether or not there is government money. There is. It is an issue of budget allocation priority. Moreover, at this early, the Estrada administration has to lobby Congress for the passage of a new law that would either remove the budget ceiling in the February 1998 augmented CARP budget, or place a new, higher ceiling of PhP 111B.

Third, many of the substantial backlogs in land acquisition and distribution are in provinces where anti-reform forces have entrenched presence, while pro-reform societal groups have minimal and uneven influence. A few examples are Regions 2, 5, and 12 (Cagayan Valley, Bicol, and Maguindanao area, respectively). These areas require more widespread organizing, and for the few groups present in these areas, more resources (logistical and political) are necessary to stand up to the challenge.

Fourth, further delay in the expropriation of deferred commercial farms may impact negatively on the overall momentum of land acquisition and redistribution of other private landholdings. Hence, it is necessary to resolve the land question in the deferred commercial farms, especially in the banana plantation, the soonest possible time.

Finally, most rural social movement groups address their issues, grievances and collective actions to the Department of Agrarian Reform. This is perfectly understandable since DAR is supposed to be the lead agency in this social reform agenda. This can also be explained by the long history of close interface between the department and land claim makers -- a kind of political interaction that has never been developed to a comparative degree in any other government agencies and their respective constituencies. Unfortunately, however, in many occasions the collective actions of pro-reform societal groups are not optimized principally because they are mobilizing before the not-so-precise pressure points within the state. The issue of collective action targets which is quite crucial to the land reform process, requires greater elaboration.

It must be noted that land acquisition and redistribution in the country are handled, in various stages, not only by the DAR but by dozens more departments and agencies. It is important to be more specific.

1) Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) for land valuation and landlord compensation. Relevant documents pass through different levels of LBP, local to national. LBP's function requires coordination with several more entities, private and public, for proper land value assessment (e.g. local government units for tax declaration, Department of Agriculture for crop productivity assessment, academic experts for independent evaluations, and so on). 2) Registry of Deeds (ROD). This is the office where the land reform process usually starts and ends. ROD supplies DAR of landlord titles to begin the acquisition process. In most occasions, landlords begin their maneuvers also with this office. Hence, "missing titles" to delay the process, and so on. Registration of CLOAs (certificates of land award) is also needed before redistribution can take place. Again, ROD handles this process. 3). Surveying of estates for acquisition, and later, for redistribution purposes, is not handled directly by the DAR. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) handles survey-related activities. In fact, actual surveying has long been privatized so that public bidding process is necessary for every surveying requirement in every landholding. Most delays in land reform actually occur in the offices of LBP, ROD, and DENR. 4) If mapping is needed, the NAMRIA (the national mapping authority) is called in. 5) If certification for water resource-related issues is necessary, the National Irrigation Authority is brought in. 6) When agronomy-related farm viability question is relevant, the Department of Agriculture is called upon. 7) When productivity of coconut trees in a given farm is relevant to coverage or valuation issues, the Philippine Coconut Authority is invited to join the process. 8) When cooperative-related issues surface, the Cooperative Development Authority, or 9) the Department of Labor and Employment, intervenes. 10) When land use conversion (to nonfarm land use) issues to evade land reform become a problem, the main government agency for housing (HLURB) usually enters into the picture, or 11) the municipal local government gets involved, or 12) the provincial local government is dragged into the scene, or 13) the Department of Trade and Industry intervenes. When legal appeals are done related to conversion issues to evade expropriation or about retention rights, more entities come in: 14) the provincial agrarian reform adjudicator, or 15) the national DAR Adjudication Board, a quasi-judicial body under the DAR, but has relative autonomy,

Oftentimes, landlords bypass these agrarian courts and instead use civilian courts, such as 16) municipal trial courts, or 17) regional trial courts, or 18) Court of Appeals. In some instances, legal appeals are forwarded to the 19) Office of the President, and 20) the Supreme Court. When criminal charges are brought in against peasants, the same courts become involved, and so are 21) the local police. When contentious public lands are involved, 22) the Land Registration Authority, and 23) Department of Justice, or even 24) the Department of Interior and Local Government (when local governments are involved), intervene.

Post-land redistribution rural development issues are even more complex. The DAR has marginal funds for post-redistribution development process. Whatever modest funds the DAR has for these purposes, usually other agencies are the fund end-users because these agencies are the direct project implementors (e.g. DPWH for farm-to-market roads, and so on). Moreover, substantial portion of these funds are in fact pre-allocated to various Congressional districts as members of Congress "divide the pie" among themselves before approving DAR's yearly budget. Hence, the DAR relies mainly on foreign-assisted projects for post-redistribution rural development. In this case, more entities get involved in the agrarian reform process, such as multilateral aid agencies like 25) UNDP, 26) FAO, 27) ADB, 28) WB, 29) IFAD, 30) OECF, 31) EU, 32). They also include more bilateral aid agencies, such as 33) German GTZ, 34) Australian AusAid, 35) Belgian BIARSP, 36) Japanese JICA, and so on. Finally, legislation of agrarian reform-related anti-reform bills and laws is done by: 37) the Senate, and 38) the Lower House of Congress.

The list of related agencies and organizations relevant to agrarian reform implementation is long, but still the above-cited list cannot possibly capture the full extent of the complexity of this organizational-institutional web.

Many, if not most, pro-reform societal groups oftentimes fail to identify most crucial pressure points within government necessary to achieve maximum impact of their collective actions. A few examples are: i) delay in survey: demonstration in front of the DAR offices, not before the DENR; ii) delay in valuation process: demonstration against DAR, not against LBP; iii) delay in CLOA registration: demonstration against DAR, not against ROD; iv) land conversion initiated by local government units: demonstration against DAR, not against the local government units involved; v) land dispute decision in favor of landlords carried out by the Supreme Court: rally against DAR, not the Supreme Court; vi) harassment by the local police: mobilization before DAR offices, not before local police offices; vii) lack of support services: demonstration versus DAR, not before the agriculture department; viii) problems in foreign-assisted projects: pressure applied on DAR, not on the relevant multilateral or bilateral aid agencies; ix) legislation of anti-reform laws: rally against DAR, not against Congress. The list can go on and on.

There are already some initiatives toward addressing these problems, but these undertakings must be more consistent, widespread and sustained.

Logistical and political resources of rural social movements are extremely limited. Hence, careful identification of the most crucial pressure points in the agrarian reform process has to be done. This is not to argue that confronting DAR in all agrarian-related issues is wrong. It is correct. After all, the DAR is the overall lead agency in agrarian reform. But when it comes to the issue of "direction of the main blow," it is argued here that rural social movements have to rethink their traditional targeting strategy. Using limited logistical and political resources available to rural social movements in the most effective way by directly targeting most crucial entities, can greatly expedite the process of land acquisition and distribution. It will also improve the chances of post-land redistribution farm and beneficiary development.

3.2. Post-land redistribution farm and beneficiary development. As mentioned earlier, the Morales DAR is saddled not only by the burden of expropriating remaining private landholdings, but also by the popular public perception that DAR is the responsible agency for developing close to five million hectares of redistributed lands. Formally, DAR is the lead agency for such undertaking. In reality, however, it has negligible funds for such initiatives. Hence, concerning post-redistribution rural development undertakings, one has to look beyond DAR.

First, bigger state funds needed for the development of redistributed lands and their immediate communities are in the hands of at least two giant departments, namely, Departments of Agriculture and Public Works and Highways. Unfortunately, there seems to be incoherence, and even conflict, in policy and program priorities between DAR and these departments. Some of the DA's and DPWH's projects may in fact indirectly subvert the course of agrarian reform when they pour in projects in areas that still need land reform because, among others, land prices go up when infrastructures and support services come in. These give landlords more incentives to resist land reform.

The Morales DAR should work for more coherent inter-agency joint initiatives toward making the DA and the DPWH more responsible in development initiatives in redistributed lands. The inter-agency "convergence strategy" spearheaded by the Morales DAR and that seems to have been accepted initially by the DA should be pursued on more practical and local level. As said earlier, rural social movements have to start pressuring these departments toward the delivery of support services in land reformed communities, despite widely perceived absence of active pro-agrarian reform forces within these agencies, and absence of history of close interface between social movements and these departments.

Second, despite some unintended negative consequences of decentralization to land reform, it is quite clear that local government units have increasingly received more state funds in recent years. These are resources that can be target of claim making initiatives of land reform beneficiaries. Third, members of Congress are able to control billions of funds yearly through their pork barrel. They should be good targets by land reform beneficiaries in terms of mobilizing funds for the development of redistributed lands.

Fourth, the controversial coconut levy fund, which is currently estimated at PhP 100 B ($2.5 B) can be a major source for the reinvigoration of the coconut sector, which covers close to one-third of the country's total farm area. The coconut levy fund is still the subject of a complex legal case between the government, Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco, and various groups of small coconut farmers and farmworkers. The ongoing negotiation for the settlement of at least a portion of the total fund must be pursued, despite serious problems related to legal technical issues.

Finally, the first four potential sources of funds have to be mobilized especially because the main source of DAR's money for post-land redistribution rural development, i.e. foreign-assisted projects, may no longer see increases in the coming years. In fact foreign funds for agrarian reform may start to taper. A number of bilateral aid agencies have recently radically cut down the number of developing countries from their list of aid recipients (down to twenty poorest countries in the world, the Philippines excluded). There seems to be an adoption of a new principle in aid targeting based on "more funds for lesser countries for greater impact." Hence, for example, the Philippines was recently delisted from the Dutch and Belgian development aid recipient lists.

3.3. Maximizing as well as policing non-land transfer reforms. For various reasons, earlier administrations appear to have taken for granted non-land transfer reforms, especially tenancy reform, while failing to closely monitor other implemented schemes, such as the stock distribution option (SDO). The non-land transfer reforms can no longer be ignored. In fact, the Morales DAR can make profound impact on the more strategic agrarian transformation if it tackles this issue more squarely, now.

First, the Morales DAR and the broad rural social movements must closely monitor and evaluate SDO implementation, specifically the Hacienda Luisita SDO. When found guilty of violation of CARP rules, the Cojuangco-Aquino sugarcane estate must be acquired immediately by government and redistributed to farmworkers. Second, production and profit sharing scheme was carried out in several commercial farms during the ten-year deferment period (1988-1998). This was especially so in banana plantations. Corporations should have given their farmworkers 10 per cent share in yearly net profit and three per cent share in gross sales. While most companies have reported compliance, farmworkers accuse them of widespread cheating. For example, giving a farmworker PhP 500 production and profit share per year when the latter should have received PhP 5000. In the banana sector, the estimated total value of "unpaid" production and profit shares over the period of ten years may run to billions of pesos, according to the Banana Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Alliance and the Mindanao Farmworkers Development Center, BARBAI and MFDC, respectively.

The Morales DAR must seriously look into these reports of violations and make the companies pay the proper amount to farmworkers. This problem can be turned into positive, so to speak, if the Morales DAR takes into account the nonpayment issues within the context of expropriation-compensation process in these plantations (i.e. those found guilty of the scam, the full unpaid amount must be automatically accounted as advance payments by farmworkers). This may prove necessary because DAR has serious financial limitations in acquiring highly expensive banana plantations. For example, LBP's estimate of an average acquisition price based on "just compensation" is PhP 300,00 per hectare, while the asking price of landlords are even higher, ranging from PhP 750,000 and PhP 1.2 million per hectare. The national average of acquisition cost to date is somewhere between PhP 30,000 and PhP 90,000 per hectare.

Third, when the "less land-dependent" agricultural sectors were excluded from CARP coverage in the mid-1990s, the law states that production and profit sharing scheme should instead be implemented. The Morales DAR, as well as the broad rural social movement, must fully address this issue since it may involve tens of thousands of rural workers and perhaps hundred millions of pesos worth every year.

Finally, farms excluded from physical acquisition and redistribution because they are less than the retention ceiling of five hectares are supposed to undergo tenancy reform through leasehold. But so far, leasehold has seen negligible implementation to date. This is worrisome because there is an estimated more than two million hectares of land under this category, involving about one million rural poor households. Initiatives toward developing a regulated land rental market may be highly contentious and difficult to organize and implement, e.g. to deal with widely scattered estimated one million small landlords and the same number of rural poor households. Pro-reform groups cannot, however, turn their backs from a million rural poor households.

3.4. Defense of previous gains. To redistribute the remaining private landholdings, to develop close to five million hectares and redistributed lands, and carry out non-land transfer reforms constitute herculean task. But this is not enough. Continued protection of earlier gains in land redistribution and rural development must be a permanent agenda of pro-reform state and societal groups. This can be done in a number of ways.

First, reversals through withdrawals of award certificates, especially in rice and corn lands, have truly been alarming for the past few years. These withdrawals occur primarily in areas of the urban sprawl and thus it is highly probable that the boom in land markets in these enclaves have triggered (previous) landlords to re-claim their lands. The Morales DAR has to seriously look into the extent of these cases and the mechanisms through which landlords are able to reverse previous reforms.

Second, the Morales DAR has to seriously look into the VLT (voluntary land transfer) transactions in the context on investigating whether technical land reform evasions occur in these lands, or whether peasants are in disadvantageous situations. Policing VLT transaction may not be easy. Rural social movements should moved into these issues as well. Third, uninstalled beneficiaries in several thousands of hectares of lands must be put in place. Military and police force, used by the DAR in some cases, must be employed more regularly. In some public lands where "voluntary noninstallation of beneficiaries" occur, immediate construction of basic access infrastructures like roads and parcellary surveys must be carried out without delay.

Finally, gains in the land reform front may be taken away from the peasants through other state policies like privatization, deregulation and import liberalization in the context of the global neoliberal resurgence. While the DAR alone may not be able to stop the forces of globalization, it can do something to minimize negative impacts on the land reform farms and beneficiaries primarily through rallying more support services to redistributed lands and beneficiaries and continued lobby against particularly damaging state policies.

3.5. Expansion, not contraction, of scope. In an effort to expand the scope of land reform, government and rural social movements must look into lands that, for various reasons, have fallen outside CARP formal coverage, while protecting the current coverage. There are already several cases when previously excluded lands ended up being expropriated and redistributed principally because of social mobilizations from below that were met with reformist initiatives within government.

First, there are still numerous public lands that should be placed under CARP coverage. For example, it is widely believed that there are still tens of thousands of public lands under the control of various state universities and colleges nationwide. More prime agricultural public lands under private control (like the 5,200-hectare Davao Penal Colony leased by the Department of Justice to Marcos crony Antonio Floirendo who has since 1969 used it as banana plantation for the global giant Chiquita), have to be taken back by government and subjected to redistribution. Finally, other government lands, e.g. many of the so-called "landed estates" that have been effectively controlled by private interests and that government should move toward clarifying its legal right over these lands for possible redistribution.

Second, the issue of "timberlands" remains stuck in the grey area of coverage or noncoverage. Formally, timberlands across the country are not included in the land reform coverage. Timberlands are usually government-owned lands that were awarded to local landed elites for logging concessions mostly decades ago. Despite effective cessation of timber-related use of the land, local elites have been able to perpetuate control over these lands, many of which have already been transformed into agriculturally-productive croplands planted mostly to coconut and corn. Some of these timberlands have been fraudulently titled privately, but then are formally outside CARP coverage (even when they are private landholdings) precisely because these are technically classified as "timberlands". Various sorts of tenancy relations do exist between the timberland holders and peasants working in these lands. Government policies and laws have so far failed to address the changed and changing land use in these timberlands over time. There are tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of hectares of timberlands across the country. In Bondoc peninsula (Quezon) alone, several thousands of hectares are in this limbo.

Third, tens of thousands of hectares of land across the country are "devoted" to cattle ranches. Cattle ranches are exempted from land acquisition and redistribution only if they comply with the rule of 1:1 ratio between cattle and hectare of land. Many if not most, of the cattle ranches do not fulfill the mentioned requirement. In most cases, far less number of cattle occupy vast tracts of land. The classic tactic of landlords is to "borrow cattle from other ranches" whenever there are government ocular inspections to evade being charged of violating the law and having the land expropriated. Some rural social movement groups have been able to retrieve lands within this category, primarily through sustained mobilizations.

Fourth, there are also landholdings that are exempted from land reform (e.g. fishponds, saltbeds, church lands), but in fact are now, for various reasons, idle and so should be covered by land reform. For example, if not for the vigilance of people around Aquafil, the controversial fishpond estate in Mindoro would have continued to be out of CARP coverage. Finally, there may be far more lands that are outside the current CARP scope, like countless five hectare-farms owned by one person, or landholdings not covered by CARP because the title is not available at the Registry of Deeds (ROD). These lands can only be put back to CARP coverage through widespread community-based mobilizations complemented by initiatives by reformists within government.

3.6. Assistance for non-land reform beneficiaries. In terms of who benefited from previous land reform initiatives in various countries, most of the recent assessments on the impact of agrarian reform point out to two-interrelated issues. On the one hand, most of those who benefited were the not-so-poor rural poor (tenants and regular farmworkers), while on the other the poorest of the rural poor (seasonal farmworkers) were left out. New dimension in social differentiation among the peasantry is emerging. ²⁶

Most agrarian reform policies have prioritized tenants and regular farmworkers as beneficiaries of land reform. This prioritization was resorted to by various governments because of the limited lands up for redistribution compared to those needing lands for cultivation. The Morales DAR and the rural social movements should not take for granted the sector and interests of the poorest of the rural poor, e.g. seasonal farmworkers, rural women and youth. It is not easy to address their problems without relating it to the broader agrarian transformation and macro-economics. But some smaller building blocs can be done now.

First, the Morales DAR and the rural social movements must consciously maximize the full absorptive capacity of CARP in order to benefit as much rural poor as possible. One example of the issue of priority among the various rural sectors is the ongoing debate on the issue of seasonal, retrenched and regular-active farmworkers in banana plantations now undergoing initial acquisition processes. Second, rural women have proven to be one of the usual non-beneficiary sectors of land reform in most agrarian reform programs in different countries, as shown empirically by Carmen Diana Deere (1985). ²⁷ CARP has undergone dynamic policy reforms around the issue of women, triggered primarily by a controversial case of negative impact on women in a Mindanao rubber plantation (Rimban, 1997). ²⁸ Much has to be done though to ensure that distinct rights and interests of rural women are guaranteed and protected within the framework of land reform. At the very least though, as shown in the case studied by Rimban, land reform must not subvert the traditional sources of income of women.

Third, bulk of the available labor force in the countryside today is comprised of the rural youth. Most of them do not have access to land, nor are potential beneficiaries in the land reform process. Government must devise programs that can augment the employability of the rural youth. Finally, two government policies can help address the issues raised above. One is to actively promote nonfarm sources of employment through cottage and other rural-based industries. Another is carrying out widespread skills development trainings among non-land reform beneficiaries to improve their employability in industries domestically or abroad.

CONCLUSIONS

Twelve years into its implementation, CARP has registered substantial, albeit partial, accomplishment. The achievement is not insignificant, as what some critics claim, nor fully successful, as what some government officials want the public to believe. While the partial accomplishment in terms of volume of lands redistributed and number of peasant recipients is indeed significant, the bulk of these redistributed lands are of the less contentious types and redistributed through the less contentious acquisition modes. Thus, what remain to be expropriated are the highly contentious private landholdings. However, despite some serious problems within the program and its partial accomplishment, today's level of CARP achievement (and the political process that goes with it) is profoundly encouraging in the context of hostile global and national neoliberal setting where state-led redistributive reforms have become a taboo. The partial CARP accomplishment is fairly comparable with the major (non-socialist) land reforms in world history.

CARP's modest and partial success, which started to gain ground during the DAR administration of Ernesto Garilao (1992-1998), is largely due to the dynamic political interaction of rural social movements and reformist state actors. The current DAR administration under the leadership of Horacio Morales Jr. is thus confronted solely by highly contentious private landholdings. Serious problems in finances and escalating resistance of landlords are among the most difficult problems the Morales DAR has to confront.

On the side of rural social movements, sustaining and expanding the oftentimes conflict-ridden interaction with state reformists within the DAR is the most pragmatic option available if they want to remain within the framework of maximizing the reformist potential of CARP. But again, the interaction between pro-reform state and societal actors has to be mutually-reinforcing, and not undermine each other. They have mutual interest in strengthening each other's ranks. There is also the difficult challenge of consolidating and expanding the ranks of social movement groups that work between outright opposition and uncritical collaboration poles.

In this regard, the launching on 10 June 2000 of UNORKA (Pambansang Ugnayan ng mga Nagsasariling Organisasyon sa Kanayunan, or National Coordination of Autonomous Local Rural People's Organizations) is a welcome development. UNORKA is a broad coalition of various autonomous local peasant and farmworker organizations across the country. While many of these local groups emerged from the tradition of national-democratic movement, some have come from other progressive backgrounds, while still others have started as state-sponsored associations but were later able to develop their autonomy. The founding of UNORKA comes at a time when the hegemony of communist party-led peasant organizations has been largely eroded; when state-co-opted peasant groups have been marginalized; and when (charismatic) personality-centered farmers associations are steadily relegated to the margins of the agrarian reform process. Hence, UNORKA offers fresh hope for a more vibrant rural social movement in the country.

In closing, a quote from former DAR Secretary Ernesto Garilao is most relevant for pro-reform state and societal actors today. He says:

"The civil society partners of the DAR were given all the opportunities to penetrate the state agrarian reform apparatus, get into alliances with national and local DAR bureaucrats, and use legal and extralegal political action to assert and seek favorable resolution of issues, concerns and interests."

"Not all the agrarian reform partners fully utilized this opening…"

"When reforms do not move as fast, it is easy to accuse government of lacking political will and sincerity, and other pejorative terms in the civil society cookbook. In many cases, reforms do not move too fast because social pressure from the constituency is weak. Many have the mistaken notion that press releases and letters to the editor constitute sufficient social pressure… [P]easant social mobilizations complemented by friendly media is support is a more effective combination. State reforms are rarely won by state reformists alone. They are won… when the alliance between autonomous peasant organizations and state reformists is much stronger than whatever coalition of the anti-reformists within and outside government can mount." ²⁹

END NOTES

¹An edited version is forthcoming in IPD Political Brief. Quezon City: Institute for Popular Democracy (www.ipd.org).

²Fellow, Institute for Popular Democracy; Vice President, Philippine Ecumenical Action for Community Empowerment (PEACE) Foundation; and PhD candidate (Development Studies) at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, The Netherlands. Useful comments from Jennifer Franco are greatly appreciated.

³"Cultivable land", that includes public lands, exceeds this figure. But it is difficult to give good estimate.

⁴Landlord compensation has the following terms: a) lands above 50 hectares – 25% cash, 75% bonds; b) lands 24-50 hectares – 30% cash, 70% bonds; and c) lands 5-24 hectares – 35% cash; 65% bonds. There are at least ten factors to be considered in the determination of "just compensation": a) cost of acquisition, b) current value of like properties, c) nature of the land, d) actual use, e) income, f) sworn valuation by the landowner, g) tax declaration, h) assessment made by government assessors, i) the social and economic benefits contributed by the farmers and farmworkers and by the government, and j) non-payment of taxes or loans secured from any government financing institution on the land.

⁵Current estimates of actual average subsidy (difference between landlord acquisition cost and distribution price) are somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

⁶Data from various DAR offices regarding deferred commercial farms differ. In Table 2, 35,635 hectares was used; but in other documents from other DAR offices, different data are used, such as more than 60,000 hectares. Hence, 50,000 hectares a crude estimate. But it is important to note that the most important sector under deferment is the banana sector, both in terms of hectarage covered and monetary value at stake.

⁷From the original scope of 6.375 million hectares down to 3.771 million hectares, or a decrease of 2.6 million hectares.

⁸From 3,820,600 hectares to 4,293,453 hectares, or an increase of 472,853 hectares.

⁹From 553,000 hectares 1,294,348 hectares.

¹⁰From 3,267,600 hectares to 2,999,105 hectares, or a reduction by 268,495 hectares.

¹¹Franco, Jennifer (forthcoming). Campaigning for Democracy: Grassroots Citizenship Movements, Less-Than-Democratic Elections and Regime Transition in the Philippines. New York: Garland Publishing; Quezon City: Institute for Popular Democracy.

¹²Lara, Francisco Jr. and Horacio Morales Jr. (1990). The Peasant Movement and the Challenge of Democratisation in the Philippines. In, J. Fox (ed.). The Challenge of Rural Democratisation: Perspectives from Latin America and the Philippines. London: Frank Cass. It is quite interesting to note that Lara and Morales are now working within the DAR, implementing the very program they once criticized. Morales is the current DAR Secretary, while Lara is his Head Executive Assistant.

¹³Putzel, James (1992). Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. London: CIIR.

¹⁴The accomplishment data is not uncontested. Some critics argue that the reported accomplishment data is inflated and that relevant issues must be factored in. It is specifically argued that there are several cases of beneficiaries having the land award certificates (CLOA) but cannot physically occupy the land because of strong landlord resistance ("uninstalled beneficiaries"). It is also a popular lament that there are rampant cases of beneficiary desertion (partly due to lack of infrastructure), illegal and "distress sales" by beneficiaries, and widespread reversals (withdrawal of certificates for various reasons). The official data captures only a portion of these incidents (i.e. reversals, uninstalled beneficiaries and desertions). Hence, it is indeed most likely that actual accomplishment is less than what is officially reported. But while it is a mistake to dismiss these incidents (as what some government officials do), it is also not correct to exaggerate their extent, as is widely done by some scholars, activists and the media. For example, incidence of uninstalled beneficiaries in private estates, which occurs in close to 50,000 hectares across the country, cannot constitute a generality, nor can a few thousands of actual reversals. In this paper, thus, a rough estimate of five per cent less than what is reported can constitute a reasonable estimate. In the end, a rigorous empirical research on the extent of these incidents is necessary for a better assessment of these incidents (a research which, by the nature of the problems, may not be easy to carry out).

¹⁵Baseline data regarding rural households differ from one study to another. The following computation is based on the more popularly accepted baseline information: roughly 55 percent of the country's 70 million people live and work in rural areas = about 38.5 million people. The average size of households is six; hence, 38.5 million people = 6.4 rural households. Roughly 80 percent of rural households comes from the peasantry (full- or part-time agriculture-based) = 5.12 million peasant households. 2.1 million households who benefited from CARP constitute about 41 per cent of the total 5.12 million households.

¹⁶Kay, Cristobal (1998). The Complex Legacy of Latin America's Agrarian Reform. ISS Working Papers Series No. 268. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies

¹⁷Thiesenhusen, William (1989). Introduction. In W. Thiesenhusen (ed.), Searching for Agrarian Reform in Latin America. Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman.

¹⁸Zevallos, Jose Vicente (1989). Agrarian Reform and Structural Change: Ecuador Since 1964. In W. Thiesenhusen (ed.). Searching for Agrarian Reform in Latin America. Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman.

¹⁹Paige, Jeffrey (1996). Land Reform and Agrarian Revolution in El Salvador. In, Latin American Research Review, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 1127-139.

²⁰Dorner, Peter (1992). Latin American Land Reforms In Theory and Practice: A Retrospective Analysis. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.

²¹For example, El-Ghonemy (1999:8) presents a similar comparison of land reform accomplishments in 22 countries worldwide. The indicators are: a) redistribution achievement in private estates, b) excluding "resettlement schemes" (are public lands redistribution all occur under resettlement schemes?), and c) takes the figures in (a) against total farmland in each country. The rather simplistic schema of El-Ghonemy fails to capture important specific contexts, such as those in the Philippines (which expectedly landed at the bottom of El-Ghonemy's table of comparison) because: a) it is not helpful to take accomplishments in private estates but put it through the lens of "total farmlands" because in some countries (like the Philippines), public lands account for a substantial portion of total cultivable lands and have in fact entrenched private interests exercising effective control over such public lands; b) El-Ghonemy's comparative attempt could have been more useful, in the context of an attempt to assess land reforms across continents, if redistribution in private estates was taken within the context of "total private lands". El-Ghonemy, Riad (1999). The Political Economy of Market-Based Land Reform. UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 104. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.

²²Deininger, Klaus (1999). Making Negotiated Land Reform Work: Initial Experience from Colombia, Brazil and South Africa. In World Development, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 651-672.

²³Franco, Jennifer (1998). Problems-Needs Assessment of Weak Organizations in Least Developed Agrarian Reform Communities: A Study of 35 ARC Organizations. Quezon City: FAO-UN.

²⁴Alonzo, Ruperto (1999). Local Governance and Poverty Alleviation. In A. Balisacan and S. Fujisaki (eds.). Causes of Poverty: Myths, Facts and Policies: A Philippine Study. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, pp. 197-228.

²⁵Refer to Borras, Saturnino Jr. (1999). The Bibingka Strategy in Land Reform Implementation: Autonomous Peasant Movements and State Reformists in the Philippines. Quezon City: Institute for Popular Democracy, Pp.199.

²⁶For example, refer to Herring, Ronald (1999). Political Conditions for Agrarian Reform and Poverty Alleviation. A Background Paper prepared for the World Development Report 2000/1.

²⁷Deere, Carmen Diana (1985). Rural Women and State Policy: The Latin American Agrarian Reform Experience. In, World Development, Vol. 13, No. 9, pp. 1037-1053.

²⁸Rimban, Luz (1997). 'Women Being Winnowed Out of Agrarian Reform,' serialized in The Manila Times, March 3 and 4, 1997.

²⁹Garilao, Ernesto (1999). Foreword. In, Saturnino Borras Jr. (1999). The Bibingka Strategy... pp.xix-xxi.