Redistributive land reform in ÔpublicÕ (forest) lands? Lessons … · making overall resource or...

Progress in Development Studies 6 2 (2006) pp 123ndash145

copy 2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 1011911464993406ps132oa

I IntroductionAccording to the conventional definitionredistributive land reform is a public policy thattransfers property rights over large privatelandholdings to small farmers and landless farmworkers (see eg Griffin et al 2002 279ndash80)The universally accepted definition implicitlyand explicitly excludes non-private lands(ie lsquopublicrsquo lsquostatersquo or lsquocommunalrsquo lands) Theunderlying assumption in the dominant landreform literature is that lands that are officiallyclassified as lsquopublicstatersquoproperties especiallythose used to open up resettlement areas arelands that are generally not cultivated andinhabited and are without pre-existing privatecontrol In such conditions it is logical to con-clude that land policies that concern theselands do not recast any land-based production

and distribution relationships The literature onland reform is strong on this point and rightlyso Yet it becomes problematic when the useof the same lens is stretched as far as to exam-ine lsquopublicrsquo lands that are in fact under varyingdegrees of cultivation imbued with privateinterests and marked by production and distri-bution relationships between the landed andthe landless and land-poor between the eliteand non-elite often not captured by officialcensus The failure to recognize the potentiallyand actually contested nature of much oflsquopublic landsrsquo risks removing them from thereach of redistributive reform and so risks thecontinuation of many of the economic socialand political problems associated with anagrarian structure that is dominated by thelanded classes as well

Redistributive land reform in lsquopublicrsquo(forest) lands Lessons from thePhilippines and their implications for land reform theory and practice

Saturnino M Borras JrInstitute of Social Studies (ISS) Kortenaerkade 12 2518AX The Hague The Netherlands

Abstract The conventional view in the land reform literature does not consider distributionof lsquopublicrsquo lands to landless and near-landless peasants as redistributive land reform Questioningthe (formal) private property bias in land reform theory and practice this paper rethinks somefundamental concepts and re-examines actual distribution in public lands in the PhilippinesIt concludes that redistributive reform can in fact occur in this type of land and the politicalprocess through which this outcome can be achieved could be highly contentious

Keywords Asia forest land reform Philippines property rights

This paper argues that much of the lands inmany developing countries today that aredefined as lsquopublicrsquo in public policy practicedo not actually fit the basic criteria used intheory to define public land In the conven-tional land reform literature lsquopublicrsquo landsare defined as unproductive and uninhabitedlands without existing land-based produc-tion and distribution relationships In fact inmany agrarian settings public and privatelands are differentiated from each other onlyby their formal property rights categoriesboth land types in reality have developedcomparable pre-existing land-based produc-tion and distribution relationships and evenfarm-productivity levels over time histori-cally The formal categories that initiallyinformed official state policies have over timeand in many instances been rendered obso-lete or meaningless by human activity muchof it (though not all) passing unnoticed bycentral state authorities in distant nationalcapitals And because redistributive landreforms are aimed precisely at adjustingpre-existing social and production relation-ships by transferring the effective controlover land-based wealth and power fromthe landed to the landless and near-landlessclasses then they should be applied in theoryand practice where appropriate regardlessof whether the land in question is officiallyclassified as private or public As will beshown in this paper when it has occurred theland reform process in public lands like thatin private lands has frequently proven to behighly contentious politically Indeed success-ful redistribution here appears to requirethe same complementation of mobilizationby autonomous peasant groups lsquofrom belowrsquoand initiatives by reformist state actorslsquofrom aboversquo that is required in land officiallyrecognized as under private ownership

The rest of this paper is organized asfollows section II explores the relevant theo-retical issues in this study Section III providesa national background on Philippine landreform and examines three local cases involv-ing public lands in that country This section

provides the empirical evidence for this studySection IV offers a short conclusion

II Conceptual backgroundMost scholars understand land reform toapply only to land officially classified asprivate Private lands are those where theentire bundle of property rights from thelsquoright to usersquo to the lsquoright to alienatersquo is underthe formal ownership and control of a privateentity that commands respect from non-owners and is legally sanctioned by the state(see eg Tsing 2002 97) Here lsquopublicrsquo landis taken in its broadest sense to mean landswhere full private property rights have notbeen applied and sanctioned by the state Thelsquopublic landrsquo category takes a variety offorms from one setting to another but forthe purposes of this paper it loosely includesstate-owned (forest) indigenous or commu-nal lands and lands operated under customaryarrangements In some cases the socialrelationships in these types of lands are alsoreferred to as lsquoinformal tenurersquo (World Bank2003 xxv)

When a land reform policy is directed toand implemented in lsquopublic landsrsquo it is calleda lsquopublic settlement programmersquo or lsquocoloniza-tionrsquo Because few bother to interrogate theofficial story about such areas and comparewith ground-level reality many scholarsactivists and policymakers alike simplyassume that such a policy does not alterpre-existing distributions of wealth andpower in society hence does not constituteand promote redistributive reform and there-fore is politically non-contentious On thebasis of the official classification data alonerather than carry out empirical investigationeven some of the most important land reformscholars have made explicit their rejection ofthe idea that public lands can play a signifi-cantly positive role in the pursuit of landreform objectives Hence Feder (1970) oncecalled the policy of land reform in publiclands lsquocounter-reformrsquo Thiesenhusen (1971210) explained lsquo[L]and reform usually con-notes a drastic change in ownership patterns

124 Redistributive land reform in public (forest) lands Philippines

in the established private sector On the otherhand directed colonization patterns on statelands or on a small number of formerly pri-vate farms frequently has little to do withmaking overall resource or income distr-ibution more egalitarian only a few settlersbenefitrsquo Tai (1974 234) explained that lsquopublicland settlement (or colonization) is an attrac-tive idea To settle people on new land andto develop it for agricultural use does notinvolve any basic alteration of the propertyrights of existing landowners hence a public-land settlement programme will generateno opposition from the landed classrsquo Lipton(1974 272) argued that lsquothe two Great [sic]evasions of land policy [are] settlementschemes and reform of tenure conditionsBoth are often included in a too-weak defini-tion Such programmes fail to achieve theirstated goals because they do not attackthe rural power structure which is rootedin an extremely unequal distribution of ownedlandrsquo Finally de Janvry et al (2001 279)have said that lsquocountries with open frontiershave engaged in settlement programs butwe do not include this form of access to landas part of land reformrsquo

In recent years conceptual and policyinterest in landed property rights in generaland lsquopublicrsquo (forest) lands in particular hasseen an unprecedented increase for severalreasons including the growing concern forpoverty eradication In the 1990s mainstreamdevelopment thinking came to accept the lackof access to productive assets such as land asone of the key reasons why the rural poorremain poor (World Bank 2003 Borras et al2005b) It is now widely believed that theestablishment of formal legal land rights (ieprivate legalized state-sanctioned claimsover property) can make the rural economylsquosecurersquo for investments and that theseinvestments would in turn lead to economicgrowth and (because of the expected trickle-down effect) to poverty eradication (WorldBank 2003 xix) Thus international devel-opment institutions have launched systematiccampaigns for land privatization via formal

land titling (lsquofrom aboversquo) using modernsatellite survey and digital data bankingtechnologies

Reinforced by this more recent neoliberalthrust regarding lsquoasset reformrsquo the dominantdiscourse in land reform scholarship todayremains firmly private property rights biasedIt is this deeply entrenched bias that has setthe benchmark for assessing what is and whatis not redistributive land reform But it is abenchmark that wittingly or unwittinglyrests on flawed official data To better under-stand what redistributive land reform is andis not we must return the discussion to twokey underlying issues The first involves actualand effective control over the land resource ndashmeaning the power to control the naturepace extent and direction of surplus produc-tion and extraction from the land and thedisposition of such surplus The second issueis the transfer of power to control landresources that has to occur from landed eliteto the landless and land-poor peasants Inother words the direction of change mustcategorically traverse social classes but favourthe poor and not remain within a social classor within elite classes or be from the landlessand land-poor to the landowning classesRedistributive reform is achieved only whenthere is actual net transfer of (power for)effective control over the land resource tolandless and land-poor peasants regardlessof whether it is in private or public lands orwhether it involves a formal change in theright to alienate or not ie full ownership orlsquostewardshiprsquolease or whether it is throughindividual or collectivecommunity formalrights (Borras 2004 2005) The presentdiscussion about the meaning of land reformbuilds on Anna Tsingrsquos notion of the essen-tial character of property rights A closeobserver of the dynamics of property rightsin Indonesia Tsing (2002 95ndash97) explainsthat property rights are essentially socialrelationships that lsquoproperty is a social rela-tionship between nonowners and owners inwhich nonowners are expected to respectthe rights of owners to their claimed objectsrsquo

SM Borras Jr 125

Those relationships are sanctioned andenforced ndash whether separately or jointly ndash byboth state and non-state institutions Sincecompeting authorities may sanction orenforce such relationships contending under-standings of resource rights may well emergeand so involve social conflict Property rightsinvolve dynamic power relations betweencontending groups of people that are notreflected in national official statistics In thiscontext Tsing (2002 95) underscores thelsquoinstabilityrsquo of property and property rightsand explains that lsquoa history of property isalways a history of shifting contests overmeaning and power in which the textualiza-tion and enforcement of particular propertyconcepts are only tentatively confirmedrsquoLikewise emphasizing the decisive role oflsquoclaim-makingrsquo actors involved in effectingthe actually existing land-based relationshipsobserved by Tsing Ronald Herring (2002288) concludes that lsquoreal property rightsare inevitably local right means what theclaimant can make it mean with or withoutstatersquos helprsquo It is these effective socio-political relationships ndash these that actuallyobtain on the ground ndash that ought to berestructured by land reform in order toeffect a more egalitarian distribution of con-trol over or ownership of land But since therelationship between owners and non-ownersremains the defining feature of formal prop-erty rights the significance of state regulatoryinstitutions such as land and property lawsretains crucial importance

1 Problems with the dominant viewsThe issues of effective landed property rightsin public (forest) lands and poverty eradi-cation are interlinked in many rural settingstoday A significant number of the rural poorare located in lands marked by ambiguousproperty rights as in the cases of severalcountries in southern Africa Latin Americaand Asia (Christodoulou 1990 20) Forexample 70 of Indonesiarsquos land is officiallycategorized as lsquostate forest landrsquo despitelsquounofficialrsquo private appropriation and use of

these lands in reality many of these landsare productive farmlands (Peluso 1992Tsing 2002) In sub-Saharan Africa lsquothe vastmajority of the land area is operated undercustomary tenure arrangements that untilvery recently were not even recognizedby the state and therefore remained outsidethe realm of lawrsquo (World Bank 2003 xviii)1

In Bolivia despite the sweeping land reformthat was implemented decades ago andrecent attempts at lsquoregularizationrsquo of landedproperty rights through land titling themajority of lands have remained mottled byambiguous property rights (ie contestedlsquopublicrsquo lands) fueling escalating class- andethnic-based conflict linked to competingland claims and socio-cultural and politicalanimosities (Kay and Urioste 2005)

Despite growing evidence to the contrarythe conventional land reform literaturecontinues to imply that the public lands beinglsquocolonizedrsquo for resettlement projects as asubstitute for or as part of land reform pro-grammes are mainly uninhabited unproduc-tive and uncultivated forest and free fromprivate elite control or interest Employing adeductive method of reasoning it is logicalthat the concept of redistribution would notapply here But this conclusion is correctonly if the assumption about the actuallyexisting land-based production and distri-bution relationships holds true which maynot always or even often be the case In factas has been suggested the social realitiesobtaining in much of the land formally cat-egorized as public are much more complexthan the conventional land reform literatureadmits and thus require a different analyticapproach The lsquorealityrsquo that is captured inthe official statistics however flawed is thelsquorealityrsquo that is most often accepted by orintegrated into the dominant discourse AsHerring (1983 269) has explained flawednationally aggregated data are too oftenuncritically reproduced and used by scholarspolicymakers and activists and in the processthe number of problematic state policies aremultiplied The over-reliance on nationally


aggregated official data alone does not resultin studies that fully and accurately reflectthe complexity and dynamism of propertyrelations in agrarian societies but ratherproduces lsquofindingsrsquo that remain blind to themTo be sure the social relationships that ani-mate local agrarian societies are not staticbut are endlessly negotiated and renegotiatedbetween actors over time (see Li 1996Tsing 2002 95) One landlord may havecontrol over the land at one point only to bereplaced by another later or the terms of asharing arrangement between landlord andtenants may change over time Neither is theagronomic condition of land permanent itcould have been forest in the past then defor-ested then planted to various crops or con-verted into pasture or reforested All ofthese changes can occur while official cate-gories and documents remain unchangedopening up gaps in the historical record andeventually leading to state interventions thatsimply do not make sense and can do muchharm Herring (2002 286) goes so far as tocontend that lsquostates claim more than theyknow and the mass publics know itrsquo

Looking from the lsquobottom uprsquo in terms ofdemographic and agro-economic conditionsthere are two broad types of public landsnamely uninhabited and idle land on the oneside and populated and cultivated land onthe other side The former (uninhabited andidle land) is what most land reform scholarsrefer to simply as lsquopublic landrsquo In this case andcontext their argument that land policieshere do not constitute redistributive reform(or could even be a lsquocounter-reformrsquo) maybe accepted as valid and unproblematic2

For the other type (populated and cultivated)the conventional assumptions in the landreform literature emerge as so problematicas to require rethinking Many of these landshave pre-existing inhabitants and productiveactivities Despite official classification aslsquopublicrsquo these lands have been the objectof complex overlapping and conflictingland claims that have subsequently emergedthat are not easy to untangle or resolve3

The implementation of state resettlementprogrammes for example has impacted onthe pre-existing communities in these landsAs James Scott (1998 191) has explained lsquotheconcentration of population in planned settle-ments may not create what state planners hadin mind but it has almost always disrupted ordestroyed prior communities whose cohesionderived mostly from non-state sourcesrsquo4

These variable lsquopublicrsquo land types moreaccurately reflect ground-level realities includ-ing the reality of agriculturally productive land-holdings that are controlled by private entitiesin many parts of the agrarian world that haveescaped the lens of land reform scholars Evendecades back in Latin America and Asiamany so-called public lands had already wit-nessed varying degrees of settlement andcultivation and the creeping grip of privateinterests though not always through formalinstitutional property rights instruments suchas private land titles or formal stewardshiprights In Asia the significant share of publiclands that were highly productive even beforeredistribution in the Taiwanese and SouthKorean land reforms attests to this The landreform beneficiaries were even made to payfor the plots carved out of blocks of publicland in Taiwan (King 1977 211) In LatinAmerica the evidence shows similar condi-tions As Felstehausen (1971 168ndash69 see alsoHobsbawm 1974 125ndash26) revealed

An estimated 3 million hectares of well-drained level savannahs are potentiallysuitable for agriculture but many of theselands are already claimed and used by privateranchers Technical observers report that sincelsquoland has long been available for the takingranches are expensive Ranch size varies from500 to 50000 hectares or morersquo Thisstatement suggests the problem associatedwith figures used to show the theoreticalavailability of land in Colombia Much of theland listed as available is already in farms andranches but is not included in statistical reportsbecause it is not titled or recorded Such landsare often held under informal possession anduse arrangements Occupation rights in turnare bought sold and exchanged outside therecorded land transfer system

SM Borras Jr 127

This observation appears not to have beenpicked up by either Felstehausenrsquos contempo-raries or succeeding scholars despite itsimportant implications for land reform stud-ies Meanwhile a process similar to thatobserved by Felstehausen in Colombia in the1960s ie a kind of informal privatization ofpublic land over time and outside the purviewof state authorities ndash has also transpired insome Asian countries such as Indonesia (seeeg Peluso 1992 White 1997 124ndash25) andthe Philippines (see Wurfel 1958 cited in Tai1974 261)

The growing literature on community-based natural resource management5 legalpluralism and related fields of research6 andmore recently environmental studies havebeen generating powerful new analytic toolsthat help deepen our understanding of thecomplex nature of landed property rights inpublic (forest) lands7 Yet so far the findingsabout existing complex resource uses man-agement and control of these so-called publiclands have not been systematically integratedinto the land reform literature The recentsurge of interest in public lands mainly in aneffort to transform them into commercialcommodities via formal private land titlingprocedures (see eg de Soto 2000 WorldBank 2003) partly contradicts the earlier(flawed) assumptions about these lands8

More specifically using cases from ThailandSato (2000 156) showed some importantaspects of what these lsquoforestsrsquo might look likeon the ground He explained

[A] more effective analysis begins with thestudy of a specific people residing in a specificlocation who are likely to be caught betweenvarious interests and power relationsrepresenting forces beyond the locale Theanalysis of lsquoambiguous landsrsquo and the peoplewho inhabit them is particularly revealing forunderstanding environmental deterioration inThailand lsquoAmbiguous landsrsquo are those whichare legally owned by the state but are used andcultivated by local people They do not fitneatly into the private property regime basedon fictions of exclusive rights and alienabilityand consist of residual lands of statesimplification processes on land tenure

Thus as in Colombia many of Thailandrsquosso-called forest lands that official governmentdocuments claim are lsquopublicrsquo lands are inreality under the effective control of privateentities elite or otherwise9

The historical empirical evidence uncoveredby different scholars coming from diverse socialscience disciplines as described above informsus about the great diversity of socio-economicand political conditions of so-called publiclands But in terms of land-based productionand distribution relationships existing in theselands it is possible and useful to construct atypology and three broad types are in factobservable Type 1 involves land where landedelite (to include here landlords and companiesengaged in logging mining livestock andagribusiness) have effective control over landsofficially classified as public and have imposedvarying land-based production and distributionrelationships with peasants and rural workersExamples of these include many corporate-controlled plantations in Indonesia Type 2concerns land where private individuals whoare neither poor nor as rich or lsquobigrsquo as otherlanded and corporate elite have effectivecontrol over land officially categorized as pub-lic as well as over the terms of farm productionand distribution arrangements with peasantsand workers Type 3 involves land where poorpeasants have actual control over parcels ofso-called public lands that they directly tillThe reality of course is far more diverseand dynamic than the typology presentedhere but the latter is useful in terms of provid-ing concrete picture of the reality underneaththe architecture of state law

In short as these examples show existingland-based production and distribution relation-ships in many public (forest) lands are diversecomplex and dynamic and thus by implicationwhen carried out on certain land types a land(reform) policy can result in multi-directionaloutcomes as shown in Table 1

2 Political struggles for land resource controlThe dynamic nature of property rightsamidst competing interpretations and claims


by different land claim-makers makes stateland laws relevant as institutional contextsand objects of these land resource conflictsBut these land laws are as Houtzager andFranco (2003) explained not lsquoself-interpretingand self-implementingrsquo It is the politicalcontestation between pro- and anti-reformforces within the state and in society thatactually interpret and implement state lawsthat makes landed property rights real Thisis certainly the case of land reform in the

Philippines (Franco 2005) In this context anlsquointeractive approachrsquo in the study of statendashsociety relations developed by Jonathan Fox(1993) is useful in examining how strugglesover the interpretation and implementationof property rights claims are won (or not) bylandless and land-poor peasants As shownin the Philippine land reform implementationprocess the most promising situation is whenthe two streams of pro-reform state andsocietal forces interact positively in pursuit

SM Borras Jr 129

Table 1 Possible outcomes of land (reform) policies in public lands

Existing condition Property rights prior to land Property rights after(reform) policy implementation land (reform) policy

implementation

Formal Effective Formal Effective

Outcome 1Landed elite (eg landlord StatePublic Private landed elite Private Private

logginglivestock landed landedagribusinessmining elite elitecompany) control over landimposing tenurial relations with peasants

Outcome 2Non-poor (but also not major StatePublic Private non-poor Private Private

landed elite) control over non-poor non-poorland imposing tenurial relations with peasants

Outcome 3Poor peasants control over StatePublic Private poor peasants Private Private

and working on land landed landed elite or elite or non-poor non-poor

Outcome 4Poor peasants control over StatePublic Private poor peasants Private poor Private poor

and working on land peasants peasants

Outcome 5Landed elite (eg landlord StatePublic Landed elite (eg landlord Private poor Private poor

agribusinesslogginglivestock loggingagribusiness peasants peasantscompany)other non-poor livestock company)control over land imposing other non-poor control tenurial relations over land imposing tenurial with peasants relations with peasants

of the common goal of implementing landreform despite differences in agendas andmotivations between them This positiveinteraction does not necessarily entail explicitcoalitions between state and societal actorsParallel initiatives of these two sets of actors(who may even consider themselves adver-saries) toward a common aim also formlsquoobjective alliancesrsquo (Borras 2001)

If this pro-reform statendashsociety alliance ismost relevant in land reform implementationin lands with clear private property rights it iseven more relevant in the pro-poor restruc-turing of agrarian relationships involvingcontested property rights in public landsprecisely because the anti-reform groupsrely on the ambiguity of the legal status ofproperty rights on the one hand and therelative lack of knowledge of the landlessrural poor about the real status of theselands on the other hand to perpetuatecontrol over land resources Thus by combin-ing the reformist initiatives lsquofrom aboversquo andsocial mobilizations lsquofrom belowrsquo the anti-reform schemes could be countered anddefeated as will be demonstrated in the casestudy on the Aquino estate in section III

Finally the land reform initiatives torestructure existing complex social relation-ships in public lands can result in differentoutcomes in terms of who benefits dependingon the existing state laws and policies Land(reform) policies in public lands can alsoresult in different types and organizationof property rights privatizedindividualizedproperty rights or in communitycollectiveproperty rights or a mixture of both ie com-munity property rights with individualizedprivatized land use rights therein The formand organization of property rights it isargued here is secondary The principal issueis that such policies should be able to reformunjust and exploitative social and productionrelationships This fundamentally differen-tiates lsquoland reform in public landsrsquo from thecurrent pro-market advocacy for land priva-tization through formal land titling Land pri-vatization through land titling programmes

are developmental and political campaignsinitiated by central states (neoliberal or other-wise) not always intended to reform actuallyexisting land-based social relationships but inthe words of James Scott (1998) to lsquosimplifyrsquoand render lsquolegiblersquo these realities that charac-terize lsquonon-state spacesrsquo in order to imposethe governance claim of the central state Onmost occasions historically redistributiveland reform included land-titling programmesbut often the latter were framed and imple-mented outside the context of the former

Land (reform) policies in public lands ifimplemented can result in at least five broadoutcomes in terms of who benefits (i) contin-ued and formalized control by landed andcorporate elite (ii) formalized control by non-poor households (iii) poor peasants losingcontrol over lands landed and corporateelite and other non-poor households gainingcontrol (iv) formalized control by poor peas-ants (v) landed and corporate elite andother non-poor households losing controlover these lands landless and near-landlesspoor households gaining control (see Table 1)Of the five possible paths only the last twopossibilities are desirable from poverty eradi-cation and social justice perspectives In thecontext of mainstream land policies the firstthree paths are most likely to dominate whilethe only chance that the last two typesof outcomes can occur on a significant scaleis when land policies in public lands areapproached from explicitly lsquoredistributive landreform frameworkrsquo

III A view from the PhilippinesThe Philippines is good country case studybecause of (a) the co-existence of formalprivate landed property rights and publicstate (forest) lands (b) a land reform pro-gramme that officially covers both private andpublic lands (c) the existence of other rele-vant land policies especially a land titling pro-gramme (d) a long period of implementationof these land (reform) policies These are con-ditions that can offer rich empirical materialsrelevant to the purposes of this paper


1 National perspectiveApproximately one-third of the Philippineland area of 30 million hectares is agriculturalland (at least based on official land use classi-fication) and ownership andor control oversuch lands has been largely monopolized bylanded classes although only about one-thirdof these farmlands is reported in officialcensus as privately owned as of 1988 (seePutzel 1992 Borras 2003b) the year theComprehensive Agrarian Reform Program(CARP) began The Gini coefficient for(private) land ownership distribution was 064in 1988 (Putzel 1992 30) The lack of controlover land resources has been one of the mostimportant causes of persistent poverty inthe country By 2004 two out of everyfive Filipinos were poor Two-thirds of thepoor are rural poor most of whom are locatedin (upland) communities precisely wherelanded property rights are ambiguous (AsianDevelopment Bank (ADB) 2005)

The exploitative agrarian structure in thePhilippines has been the cause and effect ofthe lop-sided distribution of political power insociety and the state (see Anderson 1988Kerkvliet 1990 Putzel 1992) The samesituation has also provoked periodic peasantupheavals that have won only intermittentconcessions from the state (Kerkvliet 1977Putzel 1995 Rutten 2000) A combinationof repression resettlement and limited reformhas been the traditional way through whichthe elites and the state responded to peasantupheavals (Wurfel 1988 Riedinger 1995Abinales 2000) and so peasant unrestremained an important part of rural politicsthroughout the twentieth century And asFranco (2001) explains the transition from anauthoritarian regime to a lsquonational clientilistelectoral regimersquo in 1986 did not lead to com-plete democratization of the countrysideeven now entrenched political elites continueto dominate the rural polity (see also Putzel1999) although recent years have seen someerosion of these rural lsquolocal authoritarianenclavesrsquo10 in a political process that can betraced back mainly to two factors the series

of highly constrained elections held duringand immediately after the period of authori-tarian rule and sustained social mobilizationlsquofrom belowrsquo (Franco 2001) However thetransition period (1986ndash88) opened new polit-ical opportunities for partial democratizationwhich led to a heated policy debate on agrar-ian reform After initially dragging its feeton the issue the administration of CorazoacutenAquino was forced to act after the militaryopened fire at a 20 000-strong peasant marchnear the Presidential Palace killing 13 peas-ants The subsequent policymaking processfor land reform in 1986ndash88 marked by intensepro- and anti-reform forces within the stateand in society eventually led to the legislationof a land reform law CARP11

Based on the CARP law all farmlandsprivate and public regardless of tenurial andproductivity conditions will be subject toagrarian reform There are three broad typesof reform (i) land redistribution of privateand public lands (ii) lsquoleasersquo including lease-hold on lands legally retained by landlordsand lsquostewardship contractsrsquo for some publiclands and (iii) on a small scale and limitedto the first few years of CARP implemen-tation a stock distribution option for somecorporate farms It is most likely that theoriginal intention by some state actors in theinclusion of public lands in land reform isbased on conservative agendas but oncethe implementation started unexpectedand unintended outcomes have begun tooccur (Borras 2001)

Based on its mandate CARP is supposedto carry out the reform in 10 million hectaresof the countryrsquos farmland via land redistribu-tion the estimated number of beneficiariescould reach some 4 million landless and land-poor peasant households comprising close to80 of the agricultural population12 TheDepartment of Agrarian Reform (DAR) isresponsible for redistributing all private landsand some government-owned lands Manyof these government-owned lands have beenleased to big landlords and multinationalcompanies at nominal fees (David et al 1983

SM Borras Jr 131

Tadem et al 1984 Hawes 1987 Putzel1992 de la Rosa 2005 Borras and Franco2005)13 Moreover there were also vasttracts of public land that were previouslyallotted for (re)settlement programmes andwhich have been integrated into the landreform programme Many of these landshave since decades ago been populated andcultivated where social and productionrelationships have emerged and persistedRestructuring these relationships in favourof the landless and near-landless peasantsvia land reform can therefore be truly redis-tributive and pro-poor

Meanwhile the bulk of public lands areto be redistributed by the Departmentof Environment and Natural Resources(DENR) which implements CARPrsquos twobasic components in this land type Alienableand Disposable (AampD) land and Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) pro-gramme14 Many of the lands under theseprogrammes are actually cultivated farm-lands Moreover a few millions of hectares ofland in the Philippines have been and areclassified as lsquotimberlandsrsquo in formal docu-ments officially excluding them from CARPrsquoscoverage Timber lease agreements wereissued to individuals and companies for log-ging activities decades ago However bythe 1970s many if not most of these timber-lands had already ceased to operate as suchThe conversion to crop cultivation has beenwidespread since then Thus today manylands formally classified as timberlands areactually crop-cultivated lands whereonunreported and undetected share tenancyarrangements between landed elite andpeasants have emerged proliferated andpersisted15

By 2004 official reports estimated that 55million hectares of private and public landsaccounting for about half of the countryrsquosfarmland were redistributed to landless andland-poor peasants (see Table 2) These landscame into the hands of 3 million rural poorhouseholds representing some two-fifths ofthe Philippine agricultural population16

If these data are taken at face value thelevel of land distribution that has beenachieved is comparable with that accom-plished in historically important land reformselsewhere But interpretations of the actualamount of redistribution vary from uncriticalagreement with the official figures to outrightrejection One of the most common reasonsoffered by activists and scholars who claimthat CARPrsquos land redistribution achievementis significantly less than the official claims isthat majority of the redistributed lands werepublic These data are of course correct sinceonly 17 million out of the 55 million hectaresredistributed to peasants were private lands ndashor one-third of the total CARPrsquos land redis-tribution achievement (see Table 2 the landcategories lsquoKKKrsquo lsquoLErsquo and lsquoSettlementrsquo underDAR are government-owned lands)

Riedinger et al (2001 376 emphasisoriginal) for example argued for the exclu-sion of public lands from any accounting ofland redistribution accomplishment Theydeclared

This figure reflects the area distributed by theDepartment of Agrarian Reform (2 562 089 h)in the period 1972ndash1997 net of lands distributedas settlements (662 727 hectares) and KilusangKabuhayan at Kaunlaran (606 347 hectares) The former two elements of the distributionprogram are netted out because they do notinvolve re-distribution of private agriculturallands

Thus using the conventional analytic tool inland reform scholarship one would excludea priori from any land reform accounting allpublic lands that have been distributed topoor peasants This is of course problematicBut without unity about what types of landsqualify for land reform there will be no sys-tematic and full understanding of the extentof land reform accomplishment in that coun-try (and elsewhere) Explaining how andunder what conditions land distribution inpublic lands constitutes real redistributivereform is an important step towards properassessment of land reforms in theory andpractice17


2 Local perspectivesThree different local cases will in varyinglengths be discussed below They all showthat (a) effective control by private elitesexists in landholdings officially classified aspublic (forest) land (b) actual land use oftencontradicts what is reported in official landuse categories (c) different actors use differ-ent official laws and policies in order to claimor maintain control over these lands and thatit is the actual balance of political powerbetween these actors that ultimately deter-mines whose lsquorightrsquo becomes real and effec-tive and (d) implementing different statepolicies and laws in contested public lands canresult in different outcomes pro-poor or oth-erwise The first case study presented is onethat has resulted in real redistributed reformThe case has been reported by government as

fully accomplished land reform but dismissedby scholars and activists as non-redistributivebecause it involves public land The secondcase is one that has not resulted in redistrib-utive reform (or not yet) It is an unfoldingstory about a persistent peasant struggle toacquire a piece of government-owned landThe third case is a critical overview of thecurrent land titling programme that is fundedand directed by the World Bank as well asan overview of CARPrsquos resettlement pro-gramme It shows how potentially redistrib-utive policies can result in non-redistributiveor even anti-poor outcomes

3 The Aquino Coconut Farm QuezonThe landholding in this dispute is a 201 hafarm with rolling hills tilled by 76 tenants andplanted to coconut and citrus trees located

SM Borras Jr 133

Table 2 CARPrsquos land redistribution accomplishment in hectares (1972ndash2003)

Total output by administration under the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)

LAD type Output Marcos Aquino Ramos Estrada Arroyo (in ha) 1972ndash1986 1987ndashJun 92 Jul 92ndashJun 98 Jul 98ndashDec 2000 Jan 01ndashDec 03

OLT 521 326 15 061 340 045 141 620 18 708 14 889CA 197 553 13 482 120 828 47 767 41 964VOS 416 283 54 011 255 341 76 896 91 063VLT 443 110 20 737 328 654 73 345 67 097GFI 143 394 22 938 105 498 11 906 9 296KKK 775 328 142 321 543 738 68 520 51 651LE 79 168 11 041 25 781 41 201 971 784Settlmnt 633 475 41 022 193 207 352 497 35 276 39 997

Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741

Total output under the department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) July 1987 ndash Dec 2003

LAD type Total output Aquino Ramos Estrada Arrovo (in ha) 1987ndash91 1992ndash97 1998ndash2000 2001ndash2003

AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647

LAD Land Acquisition and Distribution OLT Operation Land Transfer CA compulsory acquisition VOS voluntary offer-to-sellVLT voluntary land transfer GFI government financial institution KKK Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran LE Landed EstateSettmnt SettlementSource Borras (2004) Borras et al (2005a)

in Mulanay Bondoc Peninsula Quezon anisolated town that is a 14-hour bus ride fromManila (mainly because of bad roads in thearea)18 It is lsquoownedrsquo by the politically andeconomically influential Aquino family whichis related to other equally powerful familiesin the municipio and has been allied with thepolitical elite of the peninsula The town ofMulanay like the rest of Bondoc is a settlerarea it was one of the land frontiers openedfor settlement in the 1930ndash1960s althoughelites from the outside were the ones ableto secure contracts with government to makeuse of these vast tracts of land as timber-lands or pastures Slowly some of these eliteswere able to secure private titles to theselands through fraudulent means often inconnivance with corrupt judges Othersopted not to secure private titles but never-theless exercise effective control over theland Meanwhile since the 1970s the generalpattern of land use has been transformedfrom timberlands to crop cultivation mainlycoconut and share tenancy emerged andpersisted with the influx of settler-peasantscoming from various parts of southern Luzonand the Visayas (Franco 2005a b)

The Aquino estate has this typical his-torical profile although the Aquino familywas able to secure a private title to thislsquotimberlandrsquo Since the 1960s the Aquinofamily has imposed tenancy arrangementswith sharing percentages ranging from 70ndash30to 80ndash20 in favour of the landlord while thepeasants shoulder the bulk of productionexpenses The Aquino family administeredthe coconut farm and controlled the tenantsthrough the overseer (katiwala) It was a hardlife for the peasants

In the early 1980s the clandestine com-munist New Peoplersquos Army (NPA) began toorganize the peasants in and around thevillage where the estate is located Duringthat time at least seven of the Aquino estatetenants joined the guerrillas in various capac-ities19 In the open the same tenants becameleaders of the militant peasant associationorganized in the municipality and controlled

by the NPA The NPArsquos indoctrination onlsquogenuine agrarian reform through agrarianrevolutionrsquo became the most importantcampaign issue for organizing the landlesspeasants (see Kerkvliet 1993 Putzel 1995Rutten 2000) In fact the NPA became quitepopular in the countryside in the 1970sand 1980s partly because of its campaignfor tersyong baliktad (the inverted sharingarrangement) This means that instead ofthe 70ndash30 sharing arrangement in favour ofthe landlord the sharing scheme would beinverted to 30ndash70 in favour of the peasantsThe Aquino estate tenants were hopeful thatthe NPA campaign would be implementedon their farm as promised by the guerrillas

In the mid-1980s the NPA told the tenantsthat a meeting with the landlord had beenarranged and that the tenants must them-selves put forward the demand for a tersyongbaliktad The guerrillas would be present atthe meeting to intimidate the landlord intoagreeing to the peasantsrsquo proposal The meet-ing occurred but the NPA did not show upThe peasants could not even open theirmouths to speak out what they wanted Thelandlord verbally abused them and thepeasants were made to apologize for takingup the landlordrsquos time The peasants latersuspected that the NPA failed to show upbecause it was able to strike a deal withthe landlord on a lsquorevolutionary taxrsquo Thisincident changed the peasantsrsquo attitudetoward the NPA It was a major setback tothe peasantsrsquo effort to alleviate their difficultliving conditions Meanwhile during 1986ndash89the village was subjected to militarization aspart of the governmentrsquos lsquototal warrsquo policyagainst the communist insurgents Twotenant-farmers from the village were killed inthe indiscriminate bombings by the military

By the early 1990s the NPArsquos presencewas waning in the village Yet the peasantsstill toiled under the onerous share tenancyarrangement Around this time the DARinformation campaign about CARP reachedthe village The peasants became inter-ested But it was only toward the mid-1990s


that they started to organize themselvesaround the issue of reforming the tenancyarrangement based on the CARP law thatdeclares share tenancy illegal and requires ashift to leasehold The peasants becameexcited to them CARPrsquos leasehold was justlike the NPArsquos tersyong baliktad or even betteras their share would be slightly higher andsuch a contract would be legally secureunlike the NPA-brokered arrangementHence the tenants preferred leaseholdreform to land redistribution

In 1995 they formed an associationSAMALA (Samahan ng Malayang Magsasakasa Lupaing Aquino Association of FreePeasants of the Aquino Estate) They thenpetitioned for leasehold reform In the meet-ing at the municipal DAR office the landlordcame and shouted at and berated the tenantsin public insulting them as stupid ignorantpeasants who did not even know how tocompute a leasehold arrangement of 25 and75 This outburst solidified the peasantranks and the solidarity between them andthe local DAR officials Jointly they elevatedtheir demand to compulsory acquisition Thepeasants were agitated

Part of the expropriation process is tosecure from the DENR the classification ofthe landholding to be acquired for landreform When they got the certification fromthe DENR in 1995 they were faced with thebiggest surprise in their lives the DENRdeclared that the landholding in question infact was lsquotimberlandrsquo based on a 1953 govern-ment classification it thus could not possiblybe titled legally to any private entity Thepeasants had mixed feelings elated by thefact that the Aquinos did not own the landbut wary that their hope to own the landwould not be realized because timberlandsare not within the CARP scope for redistri-bution This was a major dilemma at thisjuncture leading to a temporary inertiawithin the organization

Momentum was regained in the followingyear when the Bondoc Development Program(BDP) funded and operated by German

overseas development assistance (GTZ) andits partner NGO the PEACE Foundation20

reached the village and began to assist thepeasants with their case Their desperatesituation pushed them to quickly embracethe offer of the assisting NGO In additionthe barangay and municipal councils hadelected new sets of officials who weresympathetic to the peasants They passedresolutions supporting the peasantsrsquo claim tothe land The emergence of the broaderalliance proved strategic in their struggle

Emboldened by the discovery of the illegalnature of the Aquinorsquos claim over the land andby the emergence of a broad front of alliesthe peasants decided to declare a boycott onland rent The landlord filed criminal charges(estafa and theft) before the municipal courtSeveral waves of arrests and detention ofthe tenants and peasant leaders occurredbetween September 1995 and October 1998During this period the landlord filed a totalof 108 estafa charges against the peasantsThe peasants were jailed for a few days thenwere able to bail themselves out mainlydrawing on the common fund they hadcollected when they decided to launch therent boycott (they had set aside 25 of theirharvest as their lsquobattle fundrsquo)

The NPA returned around this periodHowever instead of supporting the boycottcampaign of the peasants the guerrillas triedto persuade the peasants to stop the boycottpromising that the NPA would mediate withthe landlord to reform the share tenancyarrangement from the onerous 70ndash30 to thegovernmentrsquos leasehold arrangement of25ndash75 This amounted to a counter-flow in themomentum of the peasantsrsquo campaign at thisjuncture The peasants rejected these offers

Together with their allies the peasantsbrought the case all the way to the top-levelofficials of the DENR and the Office of theSolicitor General (OSG) in Manila Theirdemand was elevated to the cancellation ofthe private title of the landlord arguing thatit was illegal in the first place They hada tactical purpose the declaration of the

SM Borras Jr 135

private title as illegal would quash all thecriminal charges filed against the peasants Itwas not however an easy campaign thepeasants participated in marches demonstra-tions pickets pitching camp for several daysand on many occasions at the DENR nationalheadquarters visiting the OSG in Manilasix times Realizing the need to forge abroader coalition with other peasant groups inorder to strengthen their demands vis-agrave-visthe state SAMALA peasants co-foundeda Bondoc-wide peasant alliance KMBP(Kilusang Magbubukid ng Bondoc PeninsulaPeasant Movement of Bondoc Peninsula)The KMBP would later coalesce with anational peasant movement UNORKA21

and would forge a solidarity relationship withinternational civil society networks especiallythe FoodFirst Information and ActionNetwork (FIAN) that is also actively advo-cating for land reform worldwide Throughthese movement networks the political reachof the local struggle of SAMALA peasantswas extended to the very centre of statepower After persistent collective actions bythe peasants in 1998 a strategic victory wasachieved the OSG filed for the cancellationof the title of the Aquino family

The DENR was slow in processing thecase But finally in November 2001 theDENR awarded the estate to the peasantsunder the CBFM programme It was astandard CBFM stewardship contract for25 years renewable for another 25 years thepeasants were not to pay for the land Thecase was entered in the official CARP recordsas accomplishment in the CBFM programme(ie public land category) It was a decisivevictory for the peasants The tenants whosince the land rent boycott in 1995 had begunto engage in intensive intercropping on theland started to harvest farm productswithout having to pay any land rent Theyplanned to sustain their demand for there-classification of their land from timberlandto cropland so as to secure a full ownershiptitle over the landholding Meanwhile thevictory in the Aquino case was watched

carefully by other peasants in BondocPeninsula who were in a similar situation Notsurprisingly several land claims by Bondocpeasants similar to SAMALArsquos struggle havealready been filed before the DAR and DENRoffices (see Franco 2005a b)

4 The DAPECOL banana plantation Davao del NorteThe continuing lsquobattlersquo to expropriate a penalcolony owned by the government illustratesanother aspect of the contested boundariesof publicndashprivate domains This is the case ofthe Davao Penal Colony (DAPECOL) inDavao del Norte22 This penal colony wascreated in the early 1930s and was allocatedabout 33 000 ha of prime lands Much ofthese lands had been to varying extentssettled and cultivated by poor peasants evenprior to its reclassification as a penal colonyThe same site became the main area for thedevelopment of cavendish banana productionwhen the abaca sector dipped in the 1950sas a result of competition from syntheticalternatives Since the 1940s howeverDAPECOL has been privatized chunk bychunk in what might be fraudulent salesat ridiculously low prices23 In the late 1960scavendish banana production got into fullswing By the early 1970s there were only5200 ha left to DAPECOL

The family of Don Antonio Floirendo oneof the most important cronies of formerdictator Ferdinand Marcos was amongthose who were able to lsquobuyrsquo lands fromDAPECOL and in nearby areas They report-edly forcibly ejected pre-existing settlementsof peasants24 Today the Floirendos havesome 3500 ha of privately owned bananaplantation On top of these the Floirendoseffectively control the remaining 5200 ha ofDAPECOL through a long-term contractthat started in 1969 Through his connectionwith Marcos Antonio Floirendo was able tosecure the long-term lease contract with theDepartment of Justice (DOJ) the agencythat controls the penal colony (see Borrasand Franco 2005)


The plantation started to operate fullyunder a purchase contract with the globalgiant Chiquita Prisoners in the penal colonyworked on the banana plantation formeagre wages but only until the late 1970sJapanese buyers the biggest market for thePhilippine bananas reportedly protestedagainst the use of prison labour to producethe bananas sold to them Since then prison-ers have provided only marginal amounts oflabour in banana production Sixteen yearsafter Marcos was overthrown the Floirendosremain politically powerful They survivedthe regime transition in 1986 and all theadministration changes since then they havecontrolled the district representation inCongress and the governorship of theprovince At the time of writing Floirendowas paying the government a meagre PhP1000 per hectare per year lease rent despitethe fact that the prevailing market rate for landrental for banana plantations in adjacent areaswas already around PhP 30 000 per hectareper year (see de la Rosa 2005)

From the 1970s to the present a series ofcollective actions by farm workers and theejected original settlers in Davao and Manilahave failed to yield a favourable governmentresponse in this case The DAR repeatedlyrequested the DOJ to turn over the land tothe DAR for redistribution but were metwith negative reply In 2003 and totallydisregarding the popular clamour for theredistribution of the DAPECOL land theMacapagal-Arroyo administration renewedthe lease contract for another 25 years with-out any significant improvement in the termsof the contract It is widely believed that thelease deal between the Floirendos and theDOJ is graft-ridden

The DAPECOL is government-ownedlsquopenal colonyrsquo land but in reality it is a mod-ern banana plantation tied to one of theworldrsquos biggest multinational fruit companiesIt is public land yet the case demonstrateshow difficult it is to have such lands redistrib-uted The private elite interest is quiteentrenched Arguably and legally it should

have been redistributed under CARP becausethe law exempts only penal colonies thatare directly tilled by prisoners Besides thelease contract here is tantamount to a con-tract disadvantageous to the governmentwhich is illegal If hypothetically DAPECOLwere to be redistributed it would certainlyconstitute redistributive reform

5 The Land Administration and Management Program (LAMP) and other related casesThe World Bank has recently funded andhas been directing a 25-year land-titlingprogramme the Land Administration andManagement Program (LAMP)25 The aim isto generate individual private land titles inapproximately 5 million hectares of land tomore or less 2 million individual title holdersIt has been pilot-tested in the province ofLeyte in 2002ndash200426 It has become a full-scale programme within the province ofLeyte beginning in early 2005 and is envi-sioned to be implemented all over the countryin the next few years

Initial evidence shows however that theproject is likely to result in outcomes that areagainst the interest of the landless and land-poor classes This is because the programmeis not placed within a land reform frameworkand so the main basis for the land titles beinggenerated is the existing formal claims by anypersons ndash rich or poor landed or landlessactually cultivating the land or not In the pilotmunicipality visited for this study officialLAMP records show that majority of thosethat have put forward claims were (i) middleand upper class families (ii) not living in thevillages where the claimed lands are locatedbut in distant town and city centres (iii) mostof whom are not working the land and (iv)many of whom have multiple land claims27

The programme implementers have notrequired the lsquoresidencyrsquo of the land claimantsbecause this would lsquocomplicate and slowdownrsquo the implementation process28 Yet theofficial claimants regularly paid the municipalland tax (amelyaacuter) ndash which is one of the formal

SM Borras Jr 137

bases for property rights claims though inpractice seems to be the main basis In thesame pilot sites tenant-farmers and farm-workers who have been cultivating the landsbeing claimed by others were not even part ofthe LAMP project in any way Clearly theprogramme is not concerned about reformingpre-existing exploitative production relation-ships in these lands It is concerned solelyabout what quantity of lands it could surveyfor which formal land titles could be gener-ated It is thus not surprising that in fact theLAMP land-titling programme in the initialcases cited has institutionalized the verymechanisms that cause and perpetuateexploitative relationships and poverty

Meanwhile the way the LAMP has beenconceptualized and implemented has manythings in common with the way CARP hasbeen carried out in the land categorylsquoSettlementsrsquo (see Table 2 and relevantdiscussion in section III) Instead of imple-menting CARP in settlement lands in such away as to reform the actually pre-existingsocial and production relationships in generalthe government has simply and convenientlyparcelled settlement lands into privateproperties based on existing formal landclaims ndash and many of these claimants werenon-poor households (see Borras 2002Feranil and Tapia 2003 for cases in southernand central Mindanao) In this context themain motivation for government officials hasbeen to generate as many formal land reformaward titles as possible rather than to carryout real pro-poor reforms as mandated byCARP In such cases therefore CARPrsquos landsettlement programme like the World Bankrsquosland titling programme has formalized andinstitutionalized not restructured pre-existing exploitative social and productionrelationships

Finally the various types of outcomeshown by the cases cited above that do notfavour the landless poor have also occurred inthe two CARP programmes for pubic landsbeing implemented by the DENR (AampDland and CBFM programme) The annual

internal programme audit carried out bythe Presidential Agrarian Reform Council(PARC) has uncovered numerous cases ofanomalous distribution of public lands wherethe landed elite and other non-poor house-holds including officials of governmentagencies and local government units havebeen declared beneficiaries of the AampD andCBFM programmes (see PARC 1994 19951996 1997 2001)

IV Concluding remarksContrary to the popular assumption in theliterature that land reform in public lands doesnot constitute redistributive reform theconceptual and empirical discussion here hasshown that redistributive reform can be andhas been achieved in lsquopublicrsquo (forest) landsThe problem with conventional land policiesbeing implemented in contested public landssuch as land privatization through land titlingis that there is a great risk that they will onlyformalize the current land claims by the eliteor worse transfer control from the poor (orthe state) to the (private) elite The casestudies examined here have shown that theactual interpretation and implementation ofland laws pertaining to ambiguous lands haveoccurred through the politically contentiousinteractions between state and societalactors Specifically it is the positive interac-tion between reformist initiative lsquofrom aboversquoby state actors and social mobilization lsquofrombelowrsquo by autonomous rural social movementgroups that have been responsible for lsquopro-poorrsquo interpretation and implementation ofland laws as shown in the case of the Aquinoestate discussed in section III However thepro-reform statendashsociety alliance does notautomatically guarantee successful outcomesbecause the anti-reform forces also mobilizetheir own statendashsociety coalition as shownin the case of the DAPECOL plantationNevertheless the general absence of sus-tained mobilizations by autonomous ruralsocial movement organizations and initiativesby state reformists in CARPrsquos programmesinvolving public lands have most likely


facilitated widespread anti-reform outcomesin land policy implementation as the annualofficial internal programme audit reports haveshown

Clarification of the notion of redistributiveland reform in the context of public lands canlead to a different but better understanding ofland reform experiences as in the cases ofSouth Korea and Taiwan where public landswere in fact an important component of landreform and of less successful past attempts atland reform such as in Colombia in the 1960swhere elite-controlled public lands escapedthe analytic lens of many land reform schol-ars The reconceptualization put forward inthis study can also facilitate a better under-standing of the challenges facing land policiesin many developing countries today such as inThailand Indonesia and Bolivia as well as inAfrican countries where significant quantitiesof lands officially classified as public landshave in reality been appropriated privately

Notes1 The more precise data about the extent of

lsquoinformalrsquo tenure are those for urban areasAccording to the World Bank (2003 xxv)lsquomore than 50 percent of the peri-urban pop-ulation in Africa and more than 40 percent inAsia live under informal tenure and thereforehave highly insecure land rightsrsquo The Bankreport continues that lsquowhile no such figuresare available for rural areas many rural landusers are reported to make considerableinvestments in land as a way to establish own-ership and increase their perceived level oftenure securityrsquo

2 But meaningful reforms can still occur in Type1 settings despite not being redistributivereform See Foxrsquos (1993 10) explanationabout the distinction between redistributiveand distributive policies and Borras (2004)for a specific application to land reformscholarship

3 In the context of the Philippines refer toBorras et al (2005a) Fianza (1999) Rodil(1994) Tri-People Consortium for PeaceProgress and Development (TRICOM)(1998) Gutierrez and Borras (2004) Vidal(2004) Corpuz-Tauli and Carintildeo (2004)

Colchester (1994 71ndash72) Resurrecioacuten (1999242ndash50) and Gaspar (2000) For the Mexicanexperience refer to Harvey (1998) andVan der Haar (2000) for Guatemala seeHandy (1994)

4 See eg Leonen (1993) Broad (1994)Christodoulou (1990 20) Doornbos et al(2000) Arnold (2001 164)

5 See eg Ostrom (2001) Arnold (2001)Colchester (1994)

6 See eg von Benda-Beckmann (1993 1162001) Roquas (2002)

7 See eg Leach et al (1999) Johnson andForsyth (2002) Sato (2000) Li (1996)

8 Moreover Doornbos et al (2000 2ndash3)explained that lsquoFor most received economictheory nature constitutes a pre-theoryconcept In their original state water air tim-ber fish land and such like are ldquofreerdquo incorporating no prior human processing orexpenditure of human labour They are openlyavailable to all without social or economicrestriction As such in economic account-ing they become costless and are beyondthe domain of economic theorizing Thissimple exclusion of nature from economics issuddenly overtaken by a later phase where itis simply postulated that these free goodshave now become unfree and have taken aneconomic incarnation as products This trans-formation is not itself the subject of explana-tion in economic theory The key toentering this fertile though unsettled theo-retical space lies in posing the questionunasked by mainstream economic theorizingand the social sciences generally viz thatenquiring into the conditions underlying thedemise of nature as a free good and itsreincarnation as an economic one Implicitly itjuxtaposes on the initial state of plenty a newscenario involving the emergence of scarcitymarkets and prices But it is precisely in theinterim the unrecognized space betweenthese two postulated states or phases ofnature that many vital concerns lie buriedrsquo

9 For other similar settings elsewhere see alsoColchester (1994) Platteau (1996) Gauld(2000 236) Carter and Salgado (2001263ndash65)

10 The term lsquoauthoritarian clientelismrsquo builds onthe concept of clientelism and refers to situa-tions where lsquoimbalanced bargaining relations

SM Borras Jr 139

require the enduring political subordination ofclients and are reinforced by the threat ofcoercionrsquo (Fox 1994 153 see also Franco2001 2004 in the context of the Philippines)

11 See Putzel (1992) Riedinger (1995) Lara andMorales (1990) Hayami et al (1990)

12 This was however revisedreduced in early1996 to 8064 million hectares (see Borras2003b) Moreover some 2 million hectares offarms smaller than 5 ha (retained farms bylandlords) will be subject to share tenancy orleasehold reform which aims to benefit amillion tenant households The average farmsize in the country is 2 ha while the landreform award ceiling is fixed at 3 ha

13 As such these multinational corporations arenot the owners of the lands By implicationthe conventional thinking in this regard sug-gests that redistribution of these government-owned lands would be insignificant andnon-redistributive (see further discussionbelow) It is thus difficult to explain the impor-tance of taking back vast tracts of publiclands controlled by multinationals and havingthem redistributed to poor peasants and farmworkers Some examples are the lands previ-ously controlled by Dole in the southernPhilippines and the experience in Mexico inthe 1920s wherein numerous public landsillegally appropriated by private entitiesincluding American companies were takenback and redistributed among poor peasants(Tannenbaum 1929 315ndash34 see also Striffler2002 for the Ecuadorian experience andGriffin et al 2002 for the Taiwaneseexperience)

14 It is important at this point to clarify someissues with regard to CBFM In 1996 theDENR formally adopted the community-based approach to its forestry programmeThe CBFM integrates existing related gov-ernment programmes Integrated SocialForestry Program (ISFP) CommunityForestry Program (CFP) Forest LandManagement Program (FLMP) RegionalResources Management Program (RRMP)Low Income Upland Development Program(LIUCP) Coastal Environment Program(CREP) and Ancestral DomainsLand ClaimsProgram (ADMP) (La Vintildea 1999 18) Not allof these programmes are within the CARPscope and the ISFP remains the major CARP

component In reality however there are sev-eral overlaps between these programmesespecially between CARPrsquos CBFM and theancestral domain claims which is nowhandled by another government agency(NCIP) under another law (IPRA) The con-fusion remains eg it is not clear how muchof the reported CBFM accomplishmentdata are in fact ancestral domain claims (andvice versa) The available DENR data arenot disaggregated according to CBFM sub-programmes see also Gauld (2000) For auseful background on the CBFM programsee Garilao et al (1999) especially La Vintildea(1999) Bulatao (1999) and Cristobal (1999)see Hirtz (2003) for IPRA

15 See Borras et al (2005a) Franco (2005)Carranza (2000) Corpuz (2000)

16 See Putzel (2002) Borras (2004 2003b)Borras et al (2005a)

17 Another crucial category that needs criticalclarification is the official lsquoland redistributionrsquodata based on market-based mechanismswhich the author has discussed elsewhere(Borras 2005)

18 The data and information for this case studyare drawn primarily from a focus group discus-sion with more than a dozen peasants andpeasant leaders on the estate plus severalone-on-one formal and informal discussionswith them Many requested anonymity inthis study Data and information from inter-views with the PEACE Foundation commu-nity organizers and leaders of KMBP andUNORKA as well as provincial-regional-national DAR officials are also insightfulBorras (2004) Carranza (2000) Corpuz(2000) and Franco (2000 2005a b) are otherimportant sources of information and insights

19 Based on a focus group discussion with agroup of farmers who requested anonymity2001 Bondoc peninsula

20 Philippine Ecumenical Action for CommunityEmpowerment ndash one of the oldest and largestNGO networks in the country advocating foragrarian reform

21 UNORKA is Pambansang Ugnayan ngNagsasariling Lokal na mga SamahangMamamayan sa Kanayunan or NationalCoordination of Autonomous Local RuralPeoplersquos Organizations See Franco and Borras(2005) for a background on the national


peasant movementsrsquo continuing struggles forland and democracy in the Philippines

22 Data and information for this case study aredrawn from numerous formal and informaldiscussions with various groups directlyinvolved in the dispute leaders and membersof the three different groups of settlers whoaccused the Floirendos of having forciblyejected them from the land in the 1960s and1970s leaders and members of various farmworkersrsquo groups in the Floirendo plantationespecially those under the umbrella ofUFEARBAI-UNORKA including Eric Cabanitand Ben Isidro Governor Rodolfo del Rosariothe late Antonio Javellana and provincialregional and national DAR officials Theauthor also participated in numerous collec-tive actions launched by the various groups ofclaim-makers in this case both in Davaoand Manila Manapat (1991) de la Rosa(2005) and Franco (2005) are also usefulsources of information An earlier study(Borras et al 1999) with comprehensivedocumentation is equally useful

23 Refer to Borras et al (1999) for historicaldetails

24 Interview with several of those who wereejected from these villages (see also Borraset al 1999)

25 For a broader context regarding mainstreamland policies see Borras (2003a)

26 For details of the programme see LAMP(2002a b)

27 Numerous internal LAMP documents wereconsulted Focus group discussions withvillage officials share tenants and farmwork-ers who were excluded from the LAMPproject LAMP beneficiaries as well as NGOsinvolved in the project were also sources ofinformation

28 Based on information gathered during the fieldinvestigation in JulyndashAugust 2004 in theprovince of Leyte that included an informaldiscussion with the LAMP director theexecutive director (Lino Aparente) of theNGO partner (WESLEYDEV) of the pilotprogramme several key programme staff theregional DAR director for Region 8 as well asseveral project beneficiaries plus focusgroup discussions with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in the pilot areas and examina-tion of programme documents The author

also personally observed a two-day majorprogramme evaluation workshop in JulyndashAugust 2004 in Tacloban City The compre-hensive evaluation of the initial phase of theprogramme an evaluation commissioned bythe programme itself has also come up withsimilar conclusions (see Lim-Mangada andRoquino 2004) Interview with the EdnaTabadora executive director of the CARPSecretariat at the DENR was also useful

AcknowledgementsThis paper draws from the authorrsquos PhDdissertation I would like to thank JenniferFranco Cristoacutebal Kay and Ben White fortheir constructive comments on earlierrelated draft papers Ron Herring and JamesPutzel for their critical comments on the partsof my dissertation that are related to thetheme of this paper Lino Aparente DaniloBernal Danilo Carranza and Nestor Tapiafor various assistance during the fieldworkfor this research Finally I would like to thankthe two reviewers for their very criticalcomments and useful suggestions HoweverI am directly responsible for the analysis andany errors in this paper

ReferencesAbinales P 2000 Making Mindanao Cotabato and

Davao in the formation of the Philippine nation-stateAteneo de Manila University Press

Anderson B 1988 Cacique democracy in the Philippinesorigins and dreams New Left Review 169 3ndash29

Arnold M 2001 Devolution of control of common poolresources to local communities experiences inforestry In de Janvry A Gordillo G Platteau JPand Sadoulet E editors Access to land rural povertyand public action Oxford University Press 163ndash95

Asian Development Bank 2005 Poverty in thePhilippines income assets and access AsianDevelopment Bank

Borras S Jr 2001 Statendashsociety relations in landreform implementation in the PhilippinesDevelopment and Change 32 545ndash75

mdash 2002 Problems and prospects of redistributive landreform in Mindanao 1972ndash2002 Mindanao FocusJournal 2002 1ndash45 Alternate Forum for Research inMindanao (AFRIM)

mdash 2003a Questioning market-led agrarian reformexperiences from Brazil Colombia and South AfricaJournal of Agrarian Change 3 367ndash94

SM Borras Jr 141

mdash 2003b Inclusion-exclusion in public policies andpolicy analyses the case of philippine land reform1972ndash2002 Journal of International Development 151049ndash65

mdash 2004 Rethinking redistributive land reform strugglesfor land and power in the philippines PhDDissertation Institute of Social Studies

mdash 2005 Can redistributive reform be achieved viamarket-based voluntrary land transfer schemesevidence and lessons from the Philippines Journal ofDevelopment Studies 40 90ndash134

Borras S and Franco J 2005 Struggles for landand livelihood redistributive reform in agribusinessplantations in the philippines Critical Asian Studies37 331ndash61

Borras S Quiambao M and Gatche D 1999The difficult challenge of agrarian reform rural develop-ment and democratization in commercial plantationsFAOSARC-TSARRD Project Project DevelopmentInstitute

Borras S Jr Reyes R and Carranza D 2005aLand poverty and statendashsociety interaction in thePhilippines ISSUNDP Land Poverty and PublicAction Policy Paper No 5 Institute of Social Studies(httpwwwissnlland last accessed 22 November2005)

Borras S Kay C and Akram Lodhi H 2005bProperty rights reforms and state-society interaction forpoverty eradication and development historicaloverview and alternative perspectives ISSUNDPLand Poverty and Public Action Policy Paper No 1Institute of Social Studies (httpwwwissnllandlast accessed 22 November 2005)

Broad R 1994 The poor and the environment friendsor foe World Development 22 811ndash22

Bulatao G 1999 Community-based forest manage-ment in Cotabato more attention to socio-economicaspects please In Garilao E Soliman H andCristobal A Jr editors Saving the plains fromthe floods strengthening national governmentndashlocalgovernment partnership in community-based forestmanagement Asian Institute of Management 57ndash72

Carranza D 2000 Case study no 1 BarangayCambuga Bondoc Peninsula In Franco J editorAgrarian reform communities and rural democratizationin Quezon UNDPInstitute for Popular Democracy

Carter M and Salgado R 2001 Land market liberal-ization and the agrarian question in Latin AmericaIn Janvry D Gordillo G Platteau JP and SadouletE editors Access to land rural poverty and publicaction Oxford University Press 246ndash78

Christodoulou D 1990 The unpromised land agrarianreform and conflict worldwide Zed Books

Colchester M 1994 Sustaining the forests thecommunity-based approach in South and South-EastAsia Development and Change 25 69ndash100

Corpuz S 2000 Case study no 2 Barangays BagongSilang and Villa Batabat Buenavista Bondoc

Peninsula In Franco J editor Agrarian reformcommunities and rural democratization in QuezonUNDPInstitute for Popular Democracy 54ndash93

Corpuz-Tauli V and Carintildeo J 2004 Reclaimingbalance indigenous peoples conflict resolution andsustainable development Tebtebba Foundation

Cristobal A Jr 1999 Community-based forestmanagement a case study on the Municipality ofMauban Province of Quezon In Garilao ESoliman H and Cristobal A Jr editors Savingthe Plains from the floods strengthening nationalgovernment-local government partnership in community-based forest management Asian Institute ofManagement 37ndash66

David R Rivera T Abinales P and Teves O1983 Transnational corporations and the philippinebanana export industry In David R Rivera TAbinales P and Teves O editors Political economyof Philippine commodities Third World StudiesCenter University of the Philippines 1ndash34

de Janvry A Sadoulet E and Wolford W 2001The changing role of the state in Latin Americanland reform In de Janvry A Gordillo G PlatteauJP and Sadoulet E editors Access to land ruralpoverty and public action Oxford University Press279ndash303

de la Rosa 2005 Agrarian reform movement incommercial plantations Mindanao the experience inthe banana sector in Davas del Norte In Franco Jand Borras S editors On just grounds strugglingfor agrarian justice and citizenship rights in the ruralPhillippines Transnational InstituteInstitute forPopular Democracy

de Soto H 2000 The mystery of capital why capitalismtriumphs in the west and fails everywhere else BasicBooks

Doornbos M Saith A and White B 2000 Forestlives and struggles an introduction Doornbos MSaith A and White B editors Special issue ndashlsquoForests nature people powerrsquo Development andChange 31 1ndash10

Feder E 1970 Counterreform In Stavenhagen Reditor Agrarian problems and peasant movements inLatin America Anchor Books 173ndash224

Felstehausen H 1971 Agrarian reform Colombia InDorner P editor Land reform in Latin America LandEconomics University of Wisconsin-Madison165ndash84

Feranil S and Tapia N 2003 Insights from themargins exploring land reform implementation insettlement lands Bantaaw Economic and SocialIndicators of Mindanao 16 1ndash11

Fianza M 1999 Conflicting land use and ownershippatterns and the lsquoMoro Problemrsquo in SouthernPhilippines In Ferrer MC editor Sama-Samafacets of ethnic relations in South East Asia ThirdWorld Studies Center University of the Philippines21ndash70


Fox J 1993 The politics of food in Mexico state powerand social mobilization Cornell University Press

mdash 1994 The difficult transition from clientilism tocitizenship lessons from mexico World Politics 46151ndash84

Franco J 2000 Agrarian reform communities andrural democratization in Quezon province Institutefor Popular Democracy (IPD)United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) ndash SARDICProgramme

mdash 2001 Elections and democratization in the PhilippinesRoutledge Institute for Popular Democracy

mdash 2004 Philippines fractious civil society competingvisions of democracy In Alagappa M editor Civilsociety and political change in Asia Stanford UniversityPress 97ndash137

mdash 2005a Making property rights accessible movementinnovation in the politicalndashlegal struggle to claim landrights in the Philippines IDS Working Paper Series no244 (May 2005) Institute of Development Studies(IDS) (for PDF version see httpwwwidsacuklast accessed 22 Novemebr 2005)

Franco J 2005b On just grounds the new struggle forland and democracy in Bondoc Peninsula In FrancoJ and Borras S Jr editors On just grounds strug-gling for agrarian justice and citizenship rights in therural Philippines Transnational InstituteInstitute forPopular Democracy 115ndash94

Franco J and Borras S Jr editors 2005 On justgrounds struggling for agrarian justice and citizenshiprights in the rural Philippines Transnational InstituteInstitute for Popular Democracy

Garilao E Soliman H and Cristobal A Jreditors 1999 Saving the plains from the floodsstrengthening national governmentndashlocal governmentpartnership in community-based forest managementAsian Institute of Management

Gaspar K 2000 The Lumadrsquos struggle in the face ofglobalization Alternate Forum for Research inMindanao (AFRIM)

Gauld R 2000 Maintaining centralized control incommunity-based forestry policy construction in thePhilippines Development and Change 31 229ndash54

Griffin K Khan AR and Ickowitz A 2002Poverty and distribution of land Journal of AgrarianChange 2 279ndash330

Gutierrez E and Borras S Jr 2004 The Moro con-flict landlessness and misdirected state policies East-West Center Policy Studies no 8 (for PDF versionsee httpwwweastwestcenterwashingtonorg lastaccessed 22 November 2005)

Handy J 1994 Revolution in the countryside ruralconflict and agrarian reform in Guatemala 1944ndash1954University of North Carolina Press

Harvey N 1998 The Chiapas rebellion the struggle forland and democracy Duke University Press

Hawes G 1987 The Philippine state and the marcosregime the politics of export Cornell University Press

Hayami Y Quisumbing A and Adriano L 1990Toward an alternative land reform paradigm aPhilippine perspective Ateneo de manila UniversityPress

Herring R 1983 Land to the tillerYale University Pressmdash 2002 State property rights in nature (with special

reference to India) In Richards F editor Land prop-erty and the environment Institute for ContemporaryStudies 263ndash97

Hirtz F 2003 It takes modern means to be traditionalon recognizing indigenous cultural minorities in thePhilippines Development and Change 34 887ndash917

Hobsbawm E 1974 Peasant land occupations Pastand Present 62 120ndash52

Houtzager P and Franco J 2003 When the poor makelaw comparisons across Brazil and the PhilippinesResearch Note Law Democracy and DevelopmentProgram Institute of Development Studies

Johnson C and Forsyth T 2002 In the eyes of thestate negotiating a rights-based approach to forestconservation in Thailand World Development 301591ndash605

Kay C and Urioste M 2005 Land reform policiesrural poverty and development strategies in BoliviaISSUNDP Land Poverty and Public Action PolicyPapers No 3 Institute of Social Studies (httpwwwissnlland last accessed 22 November 2005)

Kerkvliet B 1977 The Huk rebellion a study of peasant revolt in the Philippines University ofCalifornia Press

mdash 1993 Claiming the land take-overs by villagers in thephilippines with comparisons to Indonesia PeruPortugal and Russia Journal of Peasant Studies 20459ndash93

mdash 1990 Everyday politics in the Philippines class andstatus relations in a central Luzon village University ofCalifornia Press

King R 1977 Land reform a world survey B Bell andSons Ltd

La Vintildea A 1999 The state of community-based forestmanagement in the Philippines and the role of localgovernments In Garilao E Soliman H andCristobal A Jr editors Saving the plains from thefloods strengthening national government-localgovernment partnership in community-based forestmanagement Asian Institute of Management 11ndash36

Land Administration and Management Project2002a Land administration reform winning the waragainst poverty Policy Studies Integration Report LandAdministration and Management Project (LAMP)

mdash 2002b Third progress report for the WorldBankndashAusAid joint supervision mission LAMP

Lara F Jr and Morales H Jr 1990 The peasantmovement and the challenge of democratisation inthe Philippines In Fox J editor The challenge ofrural democratisation perspectives from LatinAmerica and the Philippines Journal of DevelopmentStudies 26 143ndash62

SM Borras Jr 143

Leach M Mearns R and Scoones I 1999Environmental entitlement dynamics and institutionsin community-based natural resource managementWorld Development 27 225ndash47

Leonen M 1993 The Philippines dwindling frontiers andAgrarian Reform In Colchester M and Lohnmann Leditors The struggle for land and the fate of the forestsZed 264ndash90

Li TM 1996 Images of community discourse andstrategy in property relations Development andChange 27 501ndash27

Lim-Mangada L and Roquino E 2004 Factorsfor participation of land claimants in the land titlingactivities of PIO-1 University of the Philippines ndashTacloban College (May 2004)

Lipton M 1974 Towards a theory on land reform InLehmann D editor Peasants landlords and govern-ments agrarian reform in the third world Holmes andMeier Publishers 269ndash315

Manapat R 1991 Some are smarter than others AlethiaPublishing

Ostrom E 2001 The puzzle of counterproductiveproperty rights reforms a conceptual analysis In deJanvry A Gordillo G Platteau JP and SadouletE editors Access to land rural poverty and publicaction Oxford University Press 129ndash50

Peluso N 1992 Rich forests poor people resourcecontrol and resistance in Java University of CaliforniaPress

Platteau JP 1996 The evolutionary theory of landrights as applied to Sub-Saharan Africa a criticalassessment Development and Change 27 29ndash86

Presidential Agrarian Reform Council 1994 CARPaudit report covering the years 1992ndash1993 PresidentialAgrarian Reform Council ndash Audit Management andInvestigation Committee (PARC-AMIC) photocopyversion

mdash 1995 CARP audit report covering the year 1994Presidential Agrarian Reform Council Audit ndashManagement and Investigation Committee (PARC-AMIC) photocopy version


mdash 1997 CARP audit report covering the years1996ndash1997 Presidential Agrarian Reform Council ndashAudit Management and Investigation Committee(PARC-AMIC) photocopy version

mdash 2001 CARP audit report covering the year 1998Presidential Agrarian Reform Council ndash AuditManagement and Investigation Committee (PARC-AMIC) photocopy version

Putzel J 1992 A captive land the politics of agrarianreform in the Philippines Monthly Review PressCatholic Institute for International Relations (CIIR)Ateneo de Manila University Press

mdash 1995 Managing the lsquomain forcersquo the communistparty and the peasantry in the Philippines Journal ofPeasant Studies 22 645ndash71

mdash 1999 The survival of an imperfect democracy in thePhilippines Democratization 6 198ndash223

mdash 2002 The politics of partial reform in the PhilippinesIn Ramachandran VK and Swaminathan Meditors Agrarian studies essays on agrarian relationsin less-developed countries Tulika (also by Zed in2003)

Resurreccioacuten B 1999 Transforming nature redefiningselves gender and ethnic relations resource use andenvironmental change in the Philippine uplands PhDDissertation Institute of Social Studies ShakerPublishing

Riedinger J 1995 Agrarian reform in the Philippinesdemocratic transitions and redistributive reformStanford University Press

Riedinger J Yang W-Y and Brook K 2001Market-based land reform an imperfect solution InMorales H and Putzel J editors Power in thevillage agrarian reform rural politics institutionalchange and globalization University of the PhilippinesPress 363ndash78

Rodil BR 1994 The minoritization of the indige-nous communities of Mindanao and the SuluArchipelago Alternate Forum for Research inMindanao

Roquas E 2002 Stacked law land property and conflictin Honduras Thela Latin America Series

Rutten R 2000 High-cost activism and the workerhousehold interests commitment and the costs ofrevolutionary activism in a philippine plantationregion Theory and Society 29 215ndash52

Sato J 2000 People in between conversion andconservation of forest lands in thailand In DoornbosM Saith A and White B editors Special issue ndashlsquoForests nature people powerrsquo Development andChange 31 155ndash77

Scott J 1998 Seeing like a state how certain schemes toimprove the human condition have failed YaleUniversity Press

Striffler S 2002 In the shadows of state and capital theUnited Fruit Company popular struggle and agrarianreform restructuring in Ecuador 1900ndash1995 DukeUniversity Press

Tadem E Reyes J and Magno LS 1984Showcases of underdevelopment in Mindanao fishesforests and fruits Alternate Forum for Research inMindanao

Tai Hung-Chao 1974 Land reform and politicsa comparative analysis University of California Press

Tannenbaum F 1929 The Mexican agrarian revolutionArchon Books (published again in 1968)

Thiesenhusen W 1971 Colonization alternative orsupplement to agrarian reform In Dorner P editor


Land reform in Latin America Land EconomicsUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison 209ndash26

Tri-People Consortium for Peace Progress andDevelopment in Mindanao 1998 Defending theLand Lumad and Moro peoplersquos struggle for ancestraldomain in Mindanao Tri-People Consortium for PeaceProgress and Development in Mindanao (with AFRIMSNV and ICCO)

Tsing A 2002 Land as law negotiating the meaning ofproperty in indonesia In Richards F Land propertyand the environment Institute for ContemporaryStudies 94ndash137

van der Haar G 2000 The lsquoIndianizationrsquo of landreform the Tojolabal Highlands of Chiapas Mexico InZoomers A and vd Haar G editors Current landpolicy in Latin America regulating land tenure underneo-liberalism Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) 147ndash60

Vidal A 2004 The politics and formation of indigenouspeoplersquos right to land the case of Mindanao with specialreference to the Subanen AFRIM

von BendandashBeckmann F 1993 Scapegoat and magiccharm law in development theory and practice InHobart M editor An anthropological critique of devel-opment the growth of ignorance Routledge 116ndash34

mdash 2001 Legal pluralism and social justice in economicand political development IDS Bulletin 32 46ndash56

White B 1997 Agroindustry and contract farmers inupland West Java Journal of Peasant Studies 24100ndash36

World Bank 2003 Land policies for growth and povertyalleviation World Bank Oxford University Press(book prepared and written by Klaus Deininger)

Wurfel D 1988 Filipino politics development and decayCornell University Press

SM Borras Jr 145

This paper argues that much of the lands inmany developing countries today that aredefined as lsquopublicrsquo in public policy practicedo not actually fit the basic criteria used intheory to define public land In the conven-tional land reform literature lsquopublicrsquo landsare defined as unproductive and uninhabitedlands without existing land-based produc-tion and distribution relationships In fact inmany agrarian settings public and privatelands are differentiated from each other onlyby their formal property rights categoriesboth land types in reality have developedcomparable pre-existing land-based produc-tion and distribution relationships and evenfarm-productivity levels over time histori-cally The formal categories that initiallyinformed official state policies have over timeand in many instances been rendered obso-lete or meaningless by human activity muchof it (though not all) passing unnoticed bycentral state authorities in distant nationalcapitals And because redistributive landreforms are aimed precisely at adjustingpre-existing social and production relation-ships by transferring the effective controlover land-based wealth and power fromthe landed to the landless and near-landlessclasses then they should be applied in theoryand practice where appropriate regardlessof whether the land in question is officiallyclassified as private or public As will beshown in this paper when it has occurred theland reform process in public lands like thatin private lands has frequently proven to behighly contentious politically Indeed success-ful redistribution here appears to requirethe same complementation of mobilizationby autonomous peasant groups lsquofrom belowrsquoand initiatives by reformist state actorslsquofrom aboversquo that is required in land officiallyrecognized as under private ownership

The rest of this paper is organized asfollows section II explores the relevant theo-retical issues in this study Section III providesa national background on Philippine landreform and examines three local cases involv-ing public lands in that country This section

provides the empirical evidence for this studySection IV offers a short conclusion

II Conceptual backgroundMost scholars understand land reform toapply only to land officially classified asprivate Private lands are those where theentire bundle of property rights from thelsquoright to usersquo to the lsquoright to alienatersquo is underthe formal ownership and control of a privateentity that commands respect from non-owners and is legally sanctioned by the state(see eg Tsing 2002 97) Here lsquopublicrsquo landis taken in its broadest sense to mean landswhere full private property rights have notbeen applied and sanctioned by the state Thelsquopublic landrsquo category takes a variety offorms from one setting to another but forthe purposes of this paper it loosely includesstate-owned (forest) indigenous or commu-nal lands and lands operated under customaryarrangements In some cases the socialrelationships in these types of lands are alsoreferred to as lsquoinformal tenurersquo (World Bank2003 xxv)

When a land reform policy is directed toand implemented in lsquopublic landsrsquo it is calleda lsquopublic settlement programmersquo or lsquocoloniza-tionrsquo Because few bother to interrogate theofficial story about such areas and comparewith ground-level reality many scholarsactivists and policymakers alike simplyassume that such a policy does not alterpre-existing distributions of wealth andpower in society hence does not constituteand promote redistributive reform and there-fore is politically non-contentious On thebasis of the official classification data alonerather than carry out empirical investigationeven some of the most important land reformscholars have made explicit their rejection ofthe idea that public lands can play a signifi-cantly positive role in the pursuit of landreform objectives Hence Feder (1970) oncecalled the policy of land reform in publiclands lsquocounter-reformrsquo Thiesenhusen (1971210) explained lsquo[L]and reform usually con-notes a drastic change in ownership patterns






SM Borras Jr 125













SM Borras Jr 127












SM Borras Jr 129



implementation
























SM Borras Jr 131












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145





SM Borras Jr 125













SM Borras Jr 127












SM Borras Jr 129



implementation
























SM Borras Jr 131












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145













SM Borras Jr 127












SM Borras Jr 129



implementation
























SM Borras Jr 131












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145












SM Borras Jr 129



implementation
























SM Borras Jr 131












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145













SM Borras Jr 131












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145












SM Borras Jr 133





Total 3 209 637 67 124 812 522 1 889 377 333 389 316 741



AampD 1 295 559 533 273 360 699 131 301 270 286CBFM 1 042 088 566 468 496 585 221 035 ndash

Total 2 337 647


















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145

















SM Borras Jr 135















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145















SM Borras Jr 137





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145





















SM Borras Jr 139

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145

































SM Borras Jr 141




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145




























































SM Borras Jr 143











































SM Borras Jr 145











































SM Borras Jr 145

Redistributive land reform in ÔpublicÕ (forest) lands? Lessons … · making overall resource or...

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Transcript of Redistributive land reform in ÔpublicÕ (forest) lands? Lessons … · making overall resource or...