Agrarian Reform in the Philippines

• The Philippines is the only Southeast Asian nation subjected to Western colonization without developing a centralized government or dominant culture beforehand.
• Colonial experiences have significantly impacted the country's development.
• Social, political, economic, and cultural problems from the colonial period persist today.

Agrarian Reform in the Philippines

• Agrarian reform refers to transferring control and ownership of agricultural land to actual tillers.

History of Agrarian Reform

• During the Spanish Era, friars owned and controlled the land, distributing it as rewards to loyal peasants.
• Under the Americans, friar-owned lands were sold to wealthy families, leading to the creation of haciendas.

Macapagal Administration

• The Agricultural Land Reform Code (RA 3844) was enacted in 1963.
• It abolished tenancy, established a leasehold system with fixed rentals, and created the Land Bank of the Philippines.

Marcos Administration

• The Agricultural Land Reform Code became the Code of Agrarian Reform under RA 6389 in 1971.

Corazon Aquino Administration

• The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program was implemented as stated in RA 6657.

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)

• CARP redistributes lands to landless farmers and farm workers, regardless of crops produced.
• It aims to uplift the economic status of beneficiaries through redistribution, profit-sharing, and labor administration.
• RA 6657, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, serves as the basis for CARP and was signed by Corazon Aquino on June 10, 1988.

Salient Features of CARP

• Coverage
• Terminologies
• Schedules and priorities
• Retention limits
• Phases
• Modes of acquisition
• Exclusion, exemption, and deferment
• The scope includes public and private agricultural lands, as provided in Proclamation No. 131 and Executive Order No. 229.

Terminologies

• Farmers: Natural persons cultivating land or producing crops, with or without assistance from their household.
• Farm Workers: Natural persons rendering service for value on agricultural land or farms, paid daily, weekly, or monthly.
• Just Compensation: Indemnification for land owners' losses due to land taking, based on the owner's loss, not the government's gain.
• Regular Farm Worker: Employed on a permanent basis.
• Seasonal Farm Worker: Employed on a recurrent, periodic, or intermittent basis.
• Other Farm Worker: Farm workers not falling under the definitions of regular or seasonal farm workers.

Schedule of Implementation

• Distribution completed within 10 years of the Act's effectivity.

Retention Limit

• Landlords can retain five hectares plus three hectares for each qualified child over 15 years old as of June 15, 1988, directly involved in tilling or managing the farm.

Program Phases

• Phase 1: Covers ≈1.45 million hectares for completion of Marcos land reform, idle lands reform, and lands from government financial institutions.
• Phase 2: Covers ≈7.4 million hectares for reforming public agricultural lands, resettlement areas, and private land over 50 hectares.
• Phase 3: Covers ≈1.35 million hectares in two sub-phases: Phase 3-A includes private agricultural lands of 24 to 50 hectares and Phase 3-B includes farmlands above the retention limit up to 24 hectares.

Modes of Land Acquisition and Redistribution

• Public Lands: Distributed through Free Patents and Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs).
• Resettlement Sites: Distributed through stewardship contracts under the Integrated Social Forestry Program (ISFP).
• Private Lands: Primarily use Compulsory Acquisition (CA) and CARP originally needed ≈p221 billion for land acquisition and infrastructure.
• Land redistribution defers for commercial farms (private lands over five hectares) devoted to livestock, poultry, and aquaculture for 10 years from June 15, 1988, and subject to expropriation afterward.

Exemptions and Exclusions

• Lands for parks, wildlife, forest reserves, reforestation, fish sanctuaries, watersheds, and mangroves are exempt.

Distribution Limit

• No beneficiary can own more than three hectares of agricultural land.

Transferability of Awarded Lands

• Lands cannot be sold, transferred, or conveyed, except through hereditary succession, to the government, the LBP, or other qualified beneficiaries, for 10 years.

Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC)

• Chaired by the President of the Philippines, with members including Secretaries of Departments of Agriculture; Environment and Natural Resources; Budget and Management; Local Government, Public Works and Highways; Trade and Industry; Finance; Labor and Employment; Director-General of the National Economic and Development Authority; President, Land Bank of the Philippines; Administrator, National Irrigation Administration; and three landowner representatives (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao).

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Today

• Lands still need distributing, with the government implementing CARPER (RA 9700), prioritizing the welfare of landless farmers and farmworkers.

Land Reform vs. Agrarian Reform

• Land Reform: Improving farmers’ relationship to the land.
• Agrarian Reform: Total development of farmers including economic, social, and political transformation.

Constitution

• The constitution is a fundamental law or basis of government for happiness, rights, property, and welfare.
• It's a system of fundamental laws or principles.
• It's a written instrument establishing, limiting, and defining governmental powers.
• It contains fundamental principles uniting distinct entities under common ideals.

Purpose of the Constitution

• It prescribes a framework for government and assigns departmental powers.
• It establishes fixed principles.
• It promotes public welfare.

Classifications of Constitution

• Written Constitution: Embodied in a single formal written instrument.
• Unwritten Constitution: Product of political evolution with customs, usage, and judicial decisions.
• Cumulative or Evolved Constitution: Originates mainly in custom and common law principles.
• Conventional or Enacted Constitution: Formulated by a constitutional assembly at a specific time.
• Rigid Constitution: Amended only through a difficult process.
• Flexible Constitution: Altered by the same body that makes ordinary laws.

Evolution of the Philippine Constitution

• The Constitution of the Philippines has been in effect since 1987.
• Three other constitutions are included in the 1935 Commonwealth Constitution, 1973 Constitution, and 1986 Freedom Constitution.

Constitution of Biak-na-Bato (1897)

• Provisional Constitution of the Philippine Republic during the Philippine Revolution.
• Promulgated on November 1, 1897, it was borrowed from Cuba, written in Spanish, and translated to Tagalog.
• Government organs: Supreme Council, Consejo Supremo de Gracia Y Justicia, and Asamblea de Representatantes. The Separation of the Philippines from the Spanish monarchy was the end sought by the Revolution on August 24, 1896
• It was never fully implemented due to the Pact of Biak-na-Bato.

Malolos Constitution (1899)

• Filipino revolutionary leaders accepted payment from Spain and exiled in Hong Kong.
• The United States Navy transported Aguinaldo back to the Philippines after America defeated the Spanish.
• The Philippine Declaration of Independence was issued on June 12, 1898.
• The Malolos Congress selected a commission to draft a constitution.
• "The Political Constitution of 1899" was approved and promulgated with 39 articles across 14 titles.
• The document was patterned after the Spanish Constitution of 1812, inspired by charters of Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

The Commonwealth Constitution (1935)

• After the Treaty of Paris, the Philippines was under the power of the United States.
• The Philippine Organic Act of 1902 provided for a popularly elected Philippine Assembly
• The Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916 (“Jones Law”) modified government structure, replacing the Philippine Commission with a Senate.
• The Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act was passed in 1932.
• The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 provided for establishing a formal constitution by a constitutional convention.

Constitutional Authoritarianism (1973)

• Ferdinand E. Marcos was elected president in 1965 and re-elected in 1969.
• Elections for delegates to the constitutional convention were held on November 20, 1970.
• Martial Law was declared and some delegates were arrested with the result favoring President Marcos.

The 1987 Constitution

• The present Constitution consists of 18 articles.
• It included the Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Suffrage, National Economy and Patrimony and more
• The present Constitution established a presidential form of government.
• The 1987 Constitution includes the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary branches of government.

Taxation

• In pre-colonial times, people gave their share to the barangay headed by the Datu called "handog” or “alay”.
• During the Spanish Period, the tax system required transcription payment called tribute or “tributo”.
• The Cedula or Community Tax Certificate was introduced as compulsory tax.
• The Americans imposed the base residence tax system.
• The Withholding tax commenced after the war.
• Expanded Value Added Tax (E-VAT) and Electronic Filing and Payment System (EPFS) are available.

Nature of Taxation

• They are enforced proportional contributions from a state by virtue of its sovereignty for the support of government.
• It is an effort to apportion the cost of the government.
• The importance of taxation derives from the unavoidable obligation of the government to protect the people and extend benefits in the form of public projects and services.

Scope of Taxation

• It reaches even citizens abroad and their income earned from sources outside of their state.
• It applies to all income earned in the taxing state, whether by citizen or aliens, and all immovable and tangible personal properties found in its territory.

Exercise of Taxation

• Exercised by the local legislative bodies by a power conferred by Article X, Section 5, of the constitution.

Due Process and Taxation

• Like all government powers, it is subject to the requirements of due process.
• Taxes will not be allowed if they are confiscatory.

Equal Protection and Taxation

• Taxation is subject to the general requirements of the equal protection clause.
• Uniformity in taxation means that persons of things belonging to the same class shall be taxed at the same rate.

Double Taxation

• There is double taxation when additional taxes are laid on the same subject by the same taxing jurisdiction during the same taxing period for the same purpose.

Public Purpose

• To sustain a tax, it is necessary to show that the proceeds are devoted to public purpose for the construction of road and bridges, the establishment of schools, and museums.
• Tax exemptions includes church and charitable institutions.
• Charitable institutions, churches, and parsonage or convents appurtenant thereto, mosques, non-profit cemeteries, and all lands, buildings, are all also exempted from paying tax.

R.A. 10963 (TRAIN law) of the Philippines

• The Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law is enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress for compliance of all residents in the Philippines.
• The aims to address address unfair and inequitable individual income tax system, redundancy of non-transparent fiscal incentives resulting in incalculable revenues forgone (d) specific excise. it aims also to lessen taxes for goods that impose a higher cost to society than what their prices show ,f( f) well-intended laws that ironically abet tax evasion (i.e. law on secrecy of bank deposits)
• It decreases of the tax on personal income, estate, and donation.
• It increases the tax on certain passive incomes, documents (documentary stamp tax) as well as excise tax on petroleum products, minerals, automobiles, and cigarettes and imposes also new taxes in the form of excise tax on sweetened beverages and non-essential services (i.e. invasive cosmetic procedures)
• Access to the following topics : Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 (R.A. 6657) and the laws surrounding it, the history of Philippine constitutions, and taxation.