Land reform in the Philippines has long been a contentious issue rooted in the concentration of land ownership in landed elites during the Spanish colonial period. Some state-led land reform initiatives began during the American colonial period, following independence in response to the Huk Rebellion, during martial law, and especially following the People Power Revolution in 1986.
The current law, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), was passed in 1986 but its implementation remains unfinished to this day. Strong peasant movement mobilization that maximized CARP for land claims in the 1990s made significant yet partial land redistribution possible, encompassing about half of total agricultural lands and benefitting three-fifths of all agricultural households. However, loopholes and weaknesses in the law have been used to evade and reverse reforms.
Aside from pushing for the completion of land redistribution under CARP, peasant movements have called attention to increasing violence against land claimants, reversals of redistribution in favor of former and new landowners, aggressive agricultural land-use conversions, and lack of government support services for beneficiaries. As of 2026, the Department of Agrarian Reform says 700,000 hectares of agricultural lands has yet to be awarded to farmers.
History Much like Mexico and other Spanish colonies in the Americas, the Spanish settlement in the Philippines revolved around the encomienda system of plantations, known as haciendas. As the 19th century progressed, industrialization and liberalization of trade allowed these encomiendas to expand their cash crops, establishing a strong sugar industry in the Philippines, especially in the Visayan island of Negros.
American period The United States of America obtained the Spanish claim over the Philippines following the Spanish–American War in 1898 and conquered the country from the Philippine Republic after the Philippine–American War in 1902. The Second Philippine Commission, the Taft Commission, viewed economic development as one of its top three goals. In 1901, 93% of the islands' land area was held by the government and William Howard Taft, Governor-General of the Philippines, argued for a liberal policy so that a good portion could be sold off to American investors. Instead, the United States Congress, influenced by agricultural interests that did not want competition from the Philippines, in the 1902 Land Act, set a limit of 16 hectares of land to be sold or leased to American individuals and 1,024 hectares to American corporations. This and a downturn in the investment environment discouraged the foreign-owned plantations common in British Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and French Indochina.
Further the U.S. Federal Government faced the problem of much of the private land being owned by the Catholic Church and controlled by Spanish clerics. The American government—officially secular, hostile to continued Spanish control of much of the land of the now-American colony, and long hostile to Catholics—negotiated a settlement with the Church handing over its land.
The 1902 Philippine Organic Act was a constitution for the Insular Government, as the U.S. civil administration was known. This act, among other actions, disestablished the Catholic Church as the state religion. The United States government, in an effort to resolve the status of the friars, negotiated with the Vatican. The church agreed to sell the friars' estates and promised gradual substitution of Filipino and other non-Spanish priests for the friars. It refused, however, to withdraw the religious orders from the islands immediately, partly to avoid offending Spain. In 1904 the administration bought for $7.2 million the major part of the friars' holdings, amounting to some , of which one-half was in the vicinity of Manila. The land was eventually resold to Filipinos, some of them tenants but the majority of them estate owners.
Commonwealth Period During the American Colonial Period, tenant farmers complained about the sharecropping system, as well as by the dramatic increase in population which added economic pressure to the tenant farmers' families. As a result, an agrarian reform program was initiated by the Commonwealth. However, success of the program was hampered by ongoing clashes between tenants and landowners.
An example of these clashes includes one initiated by Benigno Ramos through his Sakdalista movement,. which advocated tax reductions, land reforms, the breakup of the large estates or haciendas, and the severing of American ties. The uprising, which occurred in Central Luzon in May 1935, claimed about a hundred lives
Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 When the Philippine Commonwealth was established, President Manuel L. Quezon implemented the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933.Manapat, Carlos, et al. Economics, Taxation, and Agrarian Reform. Quezon City: C&E Pub., 2010.Print. The purpose of this act was to regulate the share-tenancy contracts by establishing minimum standards. Primarily, the Act provided for better tenant-landlord relationship, a 50–50 sharing of the crop, regulation of interest to 10% per agricultural year, and a safeguard against arbitrary dismissal by the landlord. The major flaw of this law was that it could be used only when the majority of municipal councils in a province petitioned for it. Since landowners usually controlled such councils, no province ever asked that the law be applied. Therefore, Quezón ordered that the act be mandatory in all Central Luzon provinces. However, contracts were good only for one year. By simply refusing the renew their contract, landlords were able to eject tenants. As a result, peasant organizations agitated in vain for a law that would make the contract automatically renewable for as long as the tenants fulfilled their obligations.
In 1936, this Act was amended to get rid of its loophole, but the landlords made its application relative and not absolute. Consequently, it was never carried out in spite of its good intentions. In fact, by 1939, thousands of peasants in Central Luzon were being threatened with wholesale eviction. By the early 1940s, thousands of tenants in Central Luzon were ejected from their farmlands and the rural conflict was more acute than ever.
Therefore, during the Commonwealth period, agrarian problems persisted. This motivated the government to incorporate a cardinal principle on social justice. Dictated by the social justice program of the government, expropriation of landed estates and other landholdings commenced. Likewise, the National Land Settlement Administration (NSLA) began an orderly settlement of public agricultural lands. At the outbreak of the Second World War, major settlement areas containing more than 65,000 hectares were already established.
Roxas administration When the Philippines gained its independence in 1946, much of the land was held by a small group of wealthy landowners. There was much pressure on the democratically elected government to redistribute the land. At the same time, many of the democratically elected office holders were landowners themselves or came from land-owning families.
In 1946, shortly after his induction to presidency, Manuel Roxas proclaimed the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 effective throughout the country. However problems of land tenure continued. In fact these became worse in certain areas. Among the remedial measures enacted was Republic Act No. 34 likewise known as the Tenant Act which provided for a 70–30 sharing arrangements and regulated share-tenancy contracts. It was passed to resolve the ongoing peasant unrest in Central Luzon.
As part of his Agrarian Reform agenda, President Elpidio Quirino issued on October 23, 1950, Executive Order No. 355 which replaced the National Land Settlement Administration with Land Settlement Development Corporation (LASEDECO) which takes over the responsibilities of the Agricultural Machinery Equipment Corporation and the Rice and Corn Production Administration.
Ramon Magsaysay administration
To amplify and stabilize the functions of the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR), President Ramon Magsaysay worked for the establishment of the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA),Molina, Antonio. The Philippines: Through the centuries. Manila: University of Santo Tomas Cooperative, 1961. Print. which took over from the EDCOR and helped in the giving of some sixty-five thousand acres to three thousand indigent families for settlement purposes. Again, it allocated some other twenty-five thousand to a little more than one thousand five hundred landless families, who subsequently became farmers.
As further aid to the rural people, the president established the Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Administration (ACCFA). The idea was for this entity to make available rural credits. Records show that it did grant, in this wise, almost ten million dollars. This administration body next devoted its attention to cooperative marketing.
Along this line of help to the rural areas, President Magsaysay initiated in all earnestness the artesian wells campaign. A group-movement known as the Liberty Wells Association was formed and in record time managed to raise a considerable sum for the construction of as many artesian wells as possible. The socio-economic value of the same could not be gainsaid and the people were profuse in their gratitude.
Finally, vast irrigation projects, as well as enhancement of the Ambuklao Power plant and other similar ones, went a long way towards bringing to reality the rural improvement program advocated by President Magsaysay.
President Ramón Magsaysay enacted the following laws as part of his Agrarian Reform Program: Republic Act No. 1160 of 1954 – Abolished the LASEDECO and established the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) to resettle dissidents and landless farmers. It was particularly aimed at rebel returnees providing home lots and farmlands in Palawan and Mindanao. Republic Act No. 1199 (Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954) – Governed the relationship between landowners and tenant farmers by organizing share-tenancy and leasehold system. The law provided the security of tenure of tenants. It also created the Court of Agrarian Relations. Republic Act No. 1400 (Land Reform Act of 1955) – Created the Land Tenure Administration (LTA) which was responsible for the acquisition and distribution of large tenanted rice and corn lands over 200 hectares for individuals and 600 hectares for corporations. Republic Act No. 821 (Creation of Agricultural Credit Cooperative Financing Administration) – Provided small farmers and share tenants loans with low interest rates of six to eight percent.
Macapagal administration
Land Reform Code
The Agricultural Land Reform Code (RA 3844) was a major Philippine land reform law enacted in 1963 under President Diosdado Macapagal.
The code declared that it was State policy
To establish owner-cultivatorship and the economic family-size farm as the basis of Philippine agriculture and, as a consequence, divert landlord capital in agriculture to industrial development; To achieve a dignified existence for the small farmers free from pernicious institutional restraints and practices; To create a truly viable social and economic structure in agriculture conducive to greater productivity and higher farm incomes; To apply all labor laws equally and without discrimination to both industrial and agricultural wage earners; To provide a more vigorous and systematic land resettlement program and public land distribution; and To make the small farmers more independent, self-reliant and responsible citizens, and a source of genuine strength in our democratic society.
and, in pursuance of those policies, established the following An agricultural leasehold system to replace all existing share tenancy systems in agriculture;