Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the seventh anniversary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law

Delivered in Malacañang, Manila, June 15, 1995]

Agrarian reform:
democracy at work

ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO, we claimed the world’s attention and imagination with the first “People Power Revolution.” Today, we are again setting a precedent in the region. We are proving that democracy and sustainable development are not incompatible in a developing country.

We are proving that democracy need not be synonymous with weakness, for our democracy is strong and firm-rooted. Holding to the belief that democracy is not a handicap, but a source of strength, we have ushered in major economic and social reforms and stimulated remarkable growth.

But large as these accomplishments may be, I cannot be satisfied with them for as long as the benefits of growth are not fairly shared by those who need them most in our society. For along with economic prosperity must come equity—a narrowing of the gap between the well-to-do minority and the large number of our people who remain poor.

That is why Government must take a hand in ensuring that the poor are not shut out of economic development. That is why my Administration has thrown its weight behind a nationwide Social Reform Agenda (SRA), which we launched last September 27, 1994.

The SRA is an agenda for people empowerment. It is aimed at improving the situation of the most disadvantaged sectors in the national community—farmers, fisher-folk, the urban poor, women, young people and students, the disabled, the elderly and the indigenous cultural communities—by giving them better access to basic services and productive assets, and making them genuine participants in governance and nation building.

A pillar of social justice

Agrarian reform is a pillar of our agenda for social justice. Its role is to make growth sustainable—first, by making it equitable: by giving the ordinary people a stake in development. Second, it promotes growth that is politically stable—by dealing with a root cause of discontent and social strife.

Agrarian reform advances production efficiency as well. It directly strengthens agricultural development by accelerating the distribution of capital assets to those who till the land. It also enables landowners to shift their capital from land to industry—thus rounding off economic growth.

Today, we mark the seventh year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. At the time the law was passed, there were those who believed government would lack the political will to make landlords give up their lands willingly. Others thought the reform law was destined to become ineffective—because in the history of tenurial reforms in the world, not one had been carried out within a democratic framework.

And while the law may have its imperfections, it is certainly the most comprehensive this country has ever seen. It covers all types of land and has a 10-year time table.

Since the start of the program in 1988 until the end of last year, the Department of Agrarian Reform has distributed 1.9 million hectares of titled agricultural lands. More than half of these were transferred during the first three years of my Administration. Leasehold arrangement cover 733,000 hectares—benefitting some 478,000 farmers nationwide. The Land Bank has paid almost P7.4 billion to cover some 457,000 hectares of privately-owned agricultural lands.

Agrarian cases filed with the Department of Agrarian Reform are being decided on with dispatch. Last year alone, the department resolved more than 11,200 cases—an average of 36 cases a day. We have also increased substantially infrastructure support for our farmers. Since 1988, government has built nearly 5,000 kilometers of roads and irrigated nearly 43,800 hectares.

Land redistribution

Nor have we forgotten our farmers’ need for credit. Since 1988, total credit released to them has topped the P34-billion mark, benefitting some 3.3 million farm-families.

As we move on to the last phase of the agrarian reform program, we must deal with the remaining challenges it faces. The most crucial of these is that of redistributing privately-owned agricultural lands measuring 24 hectares and above. Breaking up these large holdings must be the program’s emphasis over these next three years. We estimate that another 700,000 hectares would still need to be redistributed.

My Administration sees land-transfer as merely the initial phase in its effort to transform our small farmers into productive, competitive agricultural entrepreneurs. Land redistribution by itself negates the economies of scale in production, processing and marketing that large landowners enjoy. For this loss of scale, land reform must make up in the greater productivity of independent cultivators.

This is why we are organizing agrarian reform communities, or ARCS, throughout the country. An arc is a cluster of communities of agrarian-reform beneficiaries receiving a package of support services from government. There are already 585 ARCS established all over the archipelago. They cover a total 2.2 million hectares and involve some 374,000 households.

The potential of these ARCS for fostering a development boom in our countryside is so self-evident that a surge of assistance for them has come from friendly countries such as Japan, Belgium, Italy and the European Community. ARCS promise to make our small farmers export-competitive. Already ARCS are contract-growing asparagus in Negros Occidental Province; hybrid corn in Ilocos Sur; peanuts in Isabela; and coffee in Nueva Vizcaya, Ifugao and Davao.

In the process, ARCS are teaching us an important lesson. Small farms can become as efficient as large farms—while also incurring lower managerial, transaction and labor costs. The key is to provide these agrarian-reform communities with the support services and marketing linkages they need. Already we are seeing a proliferation of small contract-growing schemes, particularly on Mindanao island.

Let us finish the job together

The work of completing agrarian reform over the next three years will be difficult. Our success will depend on how much we strengthen Government’s economic capacity and its political will. There are two priorities we face.

First, we must transform the Department of Agrarian Reform into an agrarian development bureaucracy serving our agrarian-reform communities. The cadres of agrarian reform must acquire new skills—if they are to remain relevant after land redistribution is over.

Second, Government must bridge the funding gap in implementing agrarian reform. The original law set aside only P50 billion for completing land reform measure. We need about double that much—both to see redistribution through and to strengthen the ARCS.

Government must also sustain farmers’ support for the program and their readiness to take advantage of the opportunities it opens to them. Government must also work to transform the lingering resistance of landowners to collaboration in its efforts to democratize landownership.

Strengthening agrarian reform

I fully realize that land ownership is an emotional issue. But the future of our country lies in a more equitable sharing of its productive resources. The time has come to shift capital from land to industry—particularly to industry that makes full use of our agricultural produce.

I urge the non-Government and people’s organizations working with us to intensify their efforts at organizing farmers groups. The lack of farmer-solidarity is a weakness we must remedy—if we are to make our agriculture productive and efficient. As for our friends in Congress, I ask them to help us pass the enabling legislation that will strengthen agrarian reform.

In 1998, we shall be celebrating the hundredth year of our independence. We must make the centennial of our political liberty also the occasion for commemorating the end of Philippine agrarian feudalism. That would be the finest tribute we can pay to all those who fought and died for liberty, equality and fraternity in this country.