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ACADEMIEJAAR 2010 - 2011

AGRARIAN REFORM AS A MEANS OF SOCIAL CONTROL

The Case of the Philippine Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program

aantal woorden: 9945

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ABSTRACT

This article examines the Philippine Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) as part of the

Philippine political elite’s drive to combat rural unrest and (peasant) mobilization for agrarian reform,

while simultaneously attempting to safeguard an elitist societal structure essentially based on a highly

skewed distribution of land. Invoking both existing literature on social movements, agrarian change

and -reform, as well as self-gathered qualitative research material, it is argued that CARP, while

effectuating limited redistribution of genuine access to land, has a profoundly unsettling effect on civil

society mobilization for agrarian reform. Firstly, the program has been employed by the elite as an

instrument of institutional channeling aimed not only at weakening and dividing the broad agrarian

reform movement, but also at channeling agrarian reform mobilization into politically manageable and

even desirable directions. Secondly, CARP brings ARB’s with weak terms of entry into a real market

largely organized to the advantage of vested – not in the least (international) agribusiness – interests.

Through a case study on a commercial banana plantation on Mindanao, it is shown how forces

emanating from this real market, interacting with internal associative dynamics, are having a

demobilizing effect on the grassroots agrarian reform sector, which is increasingly characterized by

associative fragility and is even showing signs of disintegration. This has profound consequences for

agrarian reform advocacy, in turn raising wider questions regarding the viability of (peasant)

mobilization in a (global) elitist real market environment.

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INTRODUCTION

The Philippines have historically been characterized by a very unequal land distribution, contributing

to widespread rural poverty and inequality. This situation can be traced back to colonial times, when a

landed oligarchy (the Caciques) was brought to power by the Spanish and which was subsequently left

untouched and even reinforced by the United States. Ever since, complex patronage networks ranging

from the national to the local level as well as collaboration with (inter)national – specifically American

– business- and political interests have enabled the cacique elite to quasi-monopolize the Philippine

political system, essentially reducing the country to a democracy in form only (Weekley, 2006). This

political preponderance has in turn been employed as an instrument to safeguard the elite’s landed

interests which – despite a diversification of their economic base in recent years – continues to form

the ultimate foundation of its wealth and political power – a situation leading Putzel (1992) to describe

the Philippines as a captive land. This profoundly inequitable social order has however not remained

unchallenged, and rural unrest and -mobilization have been a constant throughout Philippine history.

Hereby demands for far-reaching and even revolutionary agrarian reform – favoring state-sanctioned

expropriation and free redistribution – have (logically) taken centre stage. Historically, the elite’s

response to these demands has consisted mainly of military repression, sometimes combined with

limited and half-hearted conservative agrarian reform initiatives – focused mainly on productivity

enhancement, resettlement on public land and limited tenure reform. These measures were however

primarily aimed at pacifying peasant resistance instead of trying to eliminate what is often seen as its

root cause: rural poverty related to large-scale landlessness (Putzel, 1992; Weekley, 2006). Although

other motives (mainly efficiency- and equity-related) are often explicitly invoked, there is indeed a

marked tendency for policy-makers – both in the Philippines and elsewhere – to frame agrarian reform

initiatives in terms of counterinsurgency, as a response to rural unrest and (peasant) mobilization that

simultaneously attempts to safeguard or even reinforce the stability and legitimacy of existing state-

and societal structures (Putzel, 1992; Kay, 2001), or as Kerkvliet (1974: p. 290) put it: “its [the

government’s] concern for the peasantry is only superficial and it will push agrarian reform only far

enough to keep unrest below a tolerable level.”

Bearing this in mind, this article will interrogate the Philippine CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian

Reform Program) as the latest response of the Philippine state to demands for radical agrarian reform –

in this case primarily emanating from the underground communist opposition to the Marcos-

dictatorship. Although more far-reaching than previous agrarian reform initiatives, it will be argued

that CARP’s limited and questionable outcomes in terms of poverty alleviation and agrarian

restructuring stand in stark contrast to the program’s unsettling effect on all levels and factions of the

Philippine peasant movement.

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After elaborating on the holistic perspective on agrarian reform which will be employed in this article,

in the second part it will be shown how Philippine political elites have employed CARP as an

instrument of ‘institutional channeling’ (Belser, 1997; Earl, 2003) aimed at controlling and ultimately

weakening (peasant) demands for agrarian reform. In the third part it will be attempted to transcend

the traditional bias towards peasant mobilization for agrarian reform – often narrowed down to land

redistribution – and its interaction with state actors (see for example Borras, 1999; Franco, 2008), by

instead descending into the grassroots agrarian reform sector. It will be illustrated how forces

emanating from the real market environment wherein agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB’s) enter

after CARP-implementation, are having a potentially disempowering and divisive effect on the

peasantry. This in turn has potentially profound consequences not only for the agrarian reform process

itself, but also for further mobilizational efforts.

Throughout the article both existing academic literature as well as self-gathered qualitative research

material will be invoked. The latter is the result of a field research trip in the Philippines –

predominantly on the southern island of Mindanao – during July-August 2010, and consists mainly of

semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted with the grassroots

peasantry, people involved in the broad ‘agrarian reform movement’, as well as seasoned external

observers (see QUALITATIVE MATERIAL).

TOWARDS A HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF CARP

Evaluation of CARP as the national framework

The collapse of the Marcos-dictatorship in 1986 provided civil society with unprecedented

opportunities to pressure the political elite from below, which contributed to a national debate on

agrarian reform, eventually debouching into the enactment of CARP in 1988. Under this program the

Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) became responsible for land redistribution (through different

‘modes’), tenure reform, as well as post-transfer development (for details see Putzel, 1992; Borras,

1999). The motives for the (restored) restored cacique elite to assent to a new agrarian reform

initiative, while explicitly framed in terms of equity and efficiency, were primarily political, both as a

populist concern – as a means to prop up the new democratic government’s legitimacy – but above all

as an instrument to pacify and stabilize the countryside, where an armed communist insurgency was

gaining influence (Putzel, 1992). As expected however, the conservative political elite would employ

all means possible to curtail the program’s potential for agrarian/societal restructuring. While less

conservative than its predecessors – certainly given the current international environment – and

(formally) possessing a significant degree of redistributive potential, CARP was a far cry from the

otherwise not unreasonable alternative offered by the (for the occasion unified) peasant movement.

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Regarding the redistributive aspect, CARP covers both public and private lands, including commercial

agribusiness plantations which – because of their economic importance and supposed efficiency and

the political clout of their owners – are often considered ‘untouchable’ (Borras, 2005a). Moreover, it

also assigns considerable expropriationary powers to the state in the form of the (last resort)

Compulsory Acquisition (CA) scheme. Despite these more ‘liberal’ provisions however the

conservative influence on CARP quickly becomes clear when considering the various loopholes which

enable landowners to manipulate the reform process: a 5 hectare retention limit (plus 3 hectares for

each heir), a 10-year deferment period for commercial farms (also giving landowners incentives for

‘land conversion’), … (Putzel, 1992). CARP’s more fundamental flaws however can be related to its

pro-market character. While it differs in several respects from the currently dominant and World

Bank-promoted Market-Led Agrarian Reform (MLAR), which seeks to reconcile market efficiency

with redistributive purposes by reviving the land market and by-passing the state, CARP does not seek

to curtail market forces and instead contains some explicitly market-oriented provisions (Feranil,

2008). This makes it worthwhile to briefly consider the criticism leveled against MLAR, which is

mainly centered around the supposedly non-neutral character of the real market, which is organized to

the advantage of the powerful few and as such unable to effect real redistribution of wealth and power;

as opposed to the neutral abstract market envisioned by most economists and policy-makers

(Mackintosh, 1990; Akram-Lodhi, 2007). Regarding CARP’s market-oriented provisions, the first and

foremost is its adherence to the principle of just compensation, which requires ARB’s to pay full

market prices for the land (through a loan provided by the government-owned Land Bank).

Furthermore, this price is often inflated due to landowner meddling throughout the valuation process.

According to several observers (Putzel, 1992; Borras, 2005b) not only does just compensation inhibit

genuine redistribution of wealth and power, it is also one of the main factors leading to indebtedness

and poverty amongst ARB’s – and the state. Secondly, the ‘Voluntary Land Transfer’ (VLT) scheme,

the preferred mode of acquisition during the Arroyo-administration (2002-2010), is virtually identical

to MLAR-schemes elsewhere, as it limits the state’s role to mere mediation between willing buyers

and sellers in the land market. VLT has several flaws, not least its failure to break the nexus between

landowner and farmworker, leaving ample room for manipulation and patronage. In 2009, renewed

civil society mobilization led to the enactment of CARPER (CARP Extension with Reforms).

Although somewhat mitigating CARP’s excesses – for example by eliminating VLT – however,

CARPER left CARP’s basic tenets and flaws intact (Bello, 2009).

This significant potential for landowner manipulation of the reform process limits CARP’s true

redistributive potential (Bello, 2005), leading Putzel (1992) to describe the program as outrightly

conservative. However, given the current international environment and CARP’s (admittedly limited)

redistributive potential as well as the role it imputes to the state, it is perhaps more accurate to

approach CARP as a liberal type of agrarian reform (Borras, 2005b). As Borras (1999) has

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convincingly shown however, in order for this redistributive potential to materialize and as such

render CARP ‘pro-poor’, a significant degree of public scrutiny and civil society participation,

particularly in the form of autonomous peasant mobilization, is indispensable.

The local level: the struggle for implementation

While the (inter)national level shapes the context in which societal struggles unfold and should as such

undoubtedly constitute a focus for mobilization, the ultimate implementation and outcomes of agrarian

reform however hinge on local political dynamics (Borras, 2001). These are eloquently described by

Franco (2008), who sketches the Philippine countryside as consisting of different regulatory fields

struggling for supremacy. First there is the juridical field, embodying state law and the legal

institutions and actors representing it (CARP-legislation, the DAR, courts, …). The juridical field is

however far from authoritative in many settings, and is instead engaged in a constant struggle for

supremacy, mainly with the cacique field, embodying the landed elite struggling to retain autonomy

for its authoritarian enclaves and the personalized justice system (hacienda law) prevailing within

these enclaves. Often this implies the colonization of the juridical field by the cacique field, both on

the national as well as on the local level, thereby enabling the caciques to control the political process,

including CARP-implementation. However, in an attempt to try and counter the caciques’ dominance

a third field has proliferated more recently: the rural social movement field. Although very diverse, the

lion’s share of this sector consists of people’s organizations (PO’s) and NGO’s employing a rights-

based strategy to struggle for CARP-implementation, thereby essentially attempting to ‘decolonize’

the juridical field and make it authoritative over the cacique field.

Agrarian reform from a ‘real market perspective’

All too often research on agrarian reform has rather narrowly focused on the formal redistribution of

land (see for example Borras, 1999; Franco, 2008). Even a seemingly significant rate of redistribution

of de jure land rights does however not automatically imply the redistribution of genuine ‘access’:

“the ability to enjoy the benefits connected to these rights” (Ribot & Peluso, 2003, p. 153). In our

case, after finally obtaining land rights, ARB’s become enmeshed in a continuous struggle for access

in a real market (Mackintosh, 1990) political economy, wherein a few market makers have the ability

to regulate the market to their (material) advantage while others, especially newcomers with limited

resources, are clearly at a disadvantage. While CARP clearly impacts upon this real market by

bringing in new actors and institutions, it is equally important to understand how this real market and

the institutions underlying it are firmly embedded within the broader political-economic context

(Mackintosh, 1990). Seen from this perspective, CARP stands out (along with some other exceptions)

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as an agrarian reform program being implemented within an (inter)national environment promoting

the further liberalization and commercialization of agriculture. This neoliberal restructuring (Akram-

Lodhi, 2007) severely impacts upon the agrarian political economy: favoring large-scale capitalist

farming, it is often detrimental to the more small-scale peasant subsector. Since the ‘democratic

restoration’, the Philippines too have consistently followed the neoliberal path of free market, export-

led development. This orientation has effectuated shifts in the power constellation in the countryside,

with a rising economic – and thus political – significance of more capitalist-oriented farmers and

MNC’s growing nontraditional (plantation) export crops (exotic fruits, rubber, biofuels, …) to the

detriment of the traditional cacique-dominated sector (rice, coconut, …) (Borras, 2001). Even

CARP(ER) itself contains some provisions specifically aimed at promoting export agriculture and

accommodating MNC’s demands, such as the latter’s permission to lease an unlimited amount of land

from ARB’s. Several observers (Borras, 2001; Bello, 2005) have raised the question whether this

environment is reconcilable with an equitable redistribution of access.

CARP AS INSTITUTIONAL CHANNELING

In this part, we will try to reconstruct dynamics within the post-dictatorship agrarian reform

movement – understood here as the broad ‘social movement’ (consisting of peasant movements,

NGO’s, political parties, …) struggling for agrarian reform – to subsequently relate these to CARP as

a governmental response to these demands. It will be shown how CARP and the way in which it has

been implemented has been employed as a mechanism of institutional channeling (Balser, 1997; Earl,

2003), a concept used to describe an array of social control mechanisms, often employed in more

‘open’ political systems, which are aimed at channeling social mobilization into politically

manageable and desirable directions. It relies on such sophisticated instruments as legislation, the

politicization of resource flows to civil society and (if necessary) selective repression. After briefly

examining the history of the contemporary agrarian reform movement, it will be shown how CARP

has been instrumental in (1) limiting the range of legitimate strategic options available for

mobilization for agrarian reform (2) politically neutralizing this legitimate mobilization (3) dividing

and weakening mobilization for CARP-implementation. Aside from self-gathered qualitative material,

this account is also based on existing literature, whereby Putzel (1992), Borras (1999), Franco (2004)

and Bello (2005) deserve special mention.

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The formation of the contemporary agrarian reform movement

The precursors

The bulk of civil society now struggling for agrarian reform has its roots in the anti-Marcos

movement, which broadly consisted of two groups. The main force organizing and mobilizing the

peasantry was the largely underground communist-Maoist movement united under the ‘National

Democratic Front’ (NDF), but in practice hierarchically controlled by the Communist Party of the

Philippines (CPP). Waging armed struggle initiated from occupied ‘red areas’ in the countryside – for

which purpose an armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), was created – its ultimate aim was

(and continues to be) the overthrow of the state to subsequently carry out a socialist revolution,

including revolutionary agrarian reform. From our perspective, the NDF’s main merit was its success

in calling attention to the necessity of far-reaching agrarian reform, for which purpose it also created a

more ‘aboveboard’ national peasant movement in 1985: the KMP. Despite being very dependent on

peasant-support however, the CPP would always approach the peasantry in a rather instrumental

manner, as the main force in its struggle but as subordinate to its revolutionary goal, thereby actively

inhibiting autonomous peasant mobilization (Putzel, 1990). Moreover, being a dogmatic communist

movement, the NDF failed to develop into a realistic political alternative, and it would ultimately be

the other main opposition force, broadly called the ‘social democrats’, which would form the

centerpiece of the mass popular effort ultimately leading to Marcos’ downfall and the subsequent

installation of Corazon Aquino in 1986. While very diverse, the social democrats were united by a

firm belief that societal change could be achieved by working within the limits set by the institutional

context. Although also struggling for progressive social change, including agrarian reform – wherefore

they also mobilized the peasantry and initiated NGO’s – their more urban, middle class-constituency

and the large-scale support given by the catholic church made this group clearly more conservative,

struggling for rather superficial political change rather than for genuine societal transformation. This

conservative tendency was reinforced when the social democratic movement ultimately served as the

vehicle for the restoration of the conservative cacique elite, embodied by the installation of Corazon

Aquino in 1986.

Democratization and CARP: from temporary unification to horizontal division

Nonetheless, the ‘democratic restoration’ presented civil society with unprecedented opportunities for

mobilization. United by a firm belief that this newly freed political space should be engaged to push

for agrarian reform, the agrarian reform movement joined forces and coalesced in CPAR (Congress for

a People’s Agrarian Reform) in 1987. Convening national democrats (KMP), social democrats and

even government-aligned peasant advocates, CPAR represented an ideologically diverse and

admittedly rather loose coalition employing a multipronged – sometimes confrontational, specifically

in the case of KMP – strategy to initiate a national debate on agrarian reform. Despite this diversity,

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CPAR was able to agree on a realistic alternative agrarian reform program: PARCODE (People’s

Agrarian Reform Code). Pressures emanating from the agrarian reform movement and the persistent

threat of the communist insurgency ultimately convinced political elites to respond. This response, the

controversial and loophole-ridden CARP, would lead to profound disunity in CPAR, broadly reflective

of existing ideological differences. While CPAR as a whole formally rejected CARP, in practice social

democratic and state-aligned forces would either join the government or enter in tripartite

arrangements with state actors and landlords in order to implement CARP in a harmonious fashion.

Meanwhile the NDF, through KMP, rejected CARP as “antipeasant, prolandlord” and intensified its

land occupation campaign, which would fail however, not only due to mismanagement but also

because of heavy retaliation by (para-)military forces. Ever since, CPP-NPA and KMP continue to

virulently resist CARP-implementation through all means possible, even if this necessitates

collaborating with landed interests against those struggling for CARP-implementation. This

disagreement would – compounding other difficulties related to coalition-building (resource

allocation, leadership- and personality-issues, …) – ultimately lead to CPAR’s formal breakdown in

1992.

The NDF’s breakdown and the birth of a third approach

Meanwhile, the changing (inter)national environment at the end of the 1980’s – the demise of the

Soviet Union, democratization efforts, … – had prompted a deep existential crisis within the NDF,

eventually (around 1992-1993) leading to a schism between 2 major factions (for a more detailed

account see Borras, 1999): re-affirmists sticking to a pure and dogmatic Marxism, and rejectionists

slowly adopting a more pragmatic stance. This crisis also loomed within the peasant subsector of the

NDF where, during the 1980’s, a gradual grassroots-reorientation towards a more open-legal and

pragmatic form of ‘peasant work’ had taken place. This reorientation was largely driven by local

NGO’s organized under the PEACE foundation (Phillipine Ecumenical Action for Community

Empowerment), the community organizing pole of the NDF. The schism within the NDF provided

these pragmatists with the political opportunity to continue their reorientation, and PEACE broke

away from the NDF, thereby pulling along the KMP-faction aligned to PEACE, to subsequently

initiate DKMP (Democratic KMP) – immediately hinting at how dynamics within the Philippine

peasant movement are closely intertwined with those in the NGO-community. Aside from its more

pragmatic stance however, the PEACE-network (and the rejectionists in general) initially lacked a

coherent strategic and political framework. This would change in 1992, when newly elected president

Ramos appointed a reform-oriented DAR-leadership. This evolution persuaded PEACE to carefully

start engaging in CARP-implementation: PEACE-organizers would now employ their community-

organizing skills – acquired in the underground movement – to assist rural communities with the

formation of autonomous People’s Organizations (PO’s) in order to claim their rights under CARP.

These PO’s were to become the protagonists in what would later become known as the bibingka

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strategy, which aimed at realizing “a symbiotic interaction between autonomous social movements

from below and strategically placed state reformists from above” (Borras, 1999: p. 557). This new

strategic mission also allowed PEACE to regain the once lost confidence of funding agencies. To

reinforce this approach of ‘critical collaboration’, PEACE initiated PARRDS, a coalition with like-

minded advocacy- and political groups, in 1994. Meanwhile, this strategy was meant to fit in with the

broader political project being developed by the ‘pluralist left’, centered around the concept of

popular/participatory democracy, which focused on grassroots-empowerment as the basis for wider

societal change – and which eventually culminated in the formation of the party list AKBAYAN.

In summary, by the mid-1990’s three basic approaches to CARP had institutionalized, closely

resembling the horizontal divide in civil society vis-à-vis MLAR identified by Ghimire (2005). He

distinguishes between (a) uncritical supporters – the social democratic and state-aligned peasant

advocacy sector (b) opponents – the re-affirmist national democrats (KMP) and (c) somewhere in

between the skeptics – the critical collaboration approach of PEACE and PARRDS. This basic

division within the agrarian reform movement has ever since significantly increased the transaction

cost for any attempt at coalition-building – although the latter has not proven entirely impossible,

witness the RCM (Reform CARP Movement) which led to CARPER and which convened social

democrats and rejectionist national democrats, but excluded KMP, which is now advocating for a

more radical ‘genuine agrarian reform bill’.

Limiting the range of strategic options available

By the end of the 1990’s, through providing the prospect of direct land gains as well as possible

funding, CARP had convinced a significant part of the agrarian reform movement – rejectionist

national democrats and social democrats, as well as the peasantry aligned with these forces – into

struggling for its implementation, whether in a critical manner or not. Meanwhile, CARP also

contributed to the further marginalization and isolation of the re-affirmist national democrats’ more

radical forms agrarian reform mobilization – although they clearly also have themselves to blame for

it – by (1) partly abating their potential constituency (see also Bello, 2005) (2) relegating them to the

realms of dogmatic extremism and -stubbornness (3) reaffirming their position firmly outside the legal

institutional framework, for example by disqualifying ‘all actors prematurely entering the land’ from

land redistribution, a provision aimed directly at undermining KMP’s land occupation campaign and

legitimizing retaliation (Putzel, 1992).

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The political neutralization of legitimate mobilization

This pariah-status of the re-affirmists, in combination with the social democrats’ intimate engagement

with the state, made the rejectionists potentially the only viable and legitimate critical voice, not only

regarding agrarian reform, but also within the wider political arena (see also Putzel, 1990). Although it

effectuated significant gains in land redistribution through the employment of the bibingka strategy,

especially during the Ramos administration (1992-1998) (Borras, 1999), it became increasingly clear

however that there was also a downside to the critical collaboration approach. The essentially

decentralized, highly complex and often conflictual nature of CARP-implementation requires PO’s

and NGO’s to devote the lion’s share of their attention and resources to local land struggles.

Moreover, the focus on ‘stretching the limits’ of existing legislation all too often entails – sometimes

consciously, or as some activists put it: “being tired of the high politics” – losing sight of some of

CARP’s fundamental shortcomings, related to the broader structural context in which it is being

implemented (see also Franco, 2004). This inclination for Philippine NGO’s towards the essentially

apolitical implementation of government programs is something that has been described more in

general before (Eaton, 2003). Ghimire (2005) too describes the tendency for skeptics to limit

themselves to modest criticism and concrete proposals located firmly within the institutional

framework, instead of articulating structural issues. This in order to avoid head-on confrontation with

government and/or funding agencies. On the contrary, instead of supporting the political project of the

‘pluralist left’, of which it was meant to constitute an integral part, the critical collaboration pole

would not be immune for the divisive effect of the personality- and elite-driven Philippine political

arena, with the question of political-electoral support leading to the de facto breakdown of PARRDS

in 1998 (Franco, 2004).

Thus, by 2000 the agrarian reform movement was increasingly divided not only along strategic-

ideological lines, but also over less weighty and even parochial issues. Meanwhile, those struggling

for CARP-implementation would increasingly do so in a depoliticized and uncritical manner. The

situation at the time was aptly described by Franco (2004: p. 119) as “People power parallax on the

agrarian front”. Precisely during this period changes in the external environment necessitated

collective action at an unprecedented level: as CARP was entering its most contentious phase, with

commercial holdings now firmly on the agenda, political changes on the national level – the election

of Estrada and his subsequent replacement by Arroyo – presented civil society with a conservative

political elite much less sympathetic to agrarian reform (Bello, 2005). This also entailed that the

tripartite approach of the social democrats was slowly beginning to lose steam (Franco, 2008).

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Dividing and weakening mobilization for CARP-implementation: the case of UNORKA

Here it will be shown how CARP, aside from effectuating a basic horizontal divide within the agrarian

reform movement, has been employed by the political elite as a divide-and-rule instrument aimed at

weakening ‘legitimate’ mobilization – mobilization within the framework of CARP-implementation.

In 2000, PEACE organized a national assembly convening representatives from PO’s under its

‘guidance’ in order to create a national peasant movement. The end result was UNORKA (National

Coordination of Autonomous Local Rural People’s Organizations), which had the explicit ambition to

revive CARP-implementation. Through the up-scaling of previously predominantly localized

mobilization, it would pressure the state into resolving some high-profile CARP-cases. As such,

despite the up-scaling effort, UNORKA’s ultimate focus remained rather narrow and local, a tendency

which is noticeable in other coalitions/movements adhering to the critical collaboration approach as

well. For example as of now KATARUNGAN, an offspring from UNORKA, is focusing on Hacienda

Luisita, the >6000 ha. plantation owned by president Aquino’s family. While this focus on high-

profile cases might have its advantages, particularly heightened media attention, it also tends to

frustrate a grassroots membership that feels increasingly neglected; a feeling compounded for some by

a bias towards land redistribution instead of post-transfer development. Nonetheless, despite this rather

limited scope UNORKA, because of PEACE-assistance and its substantial membership, had the

potential to become a strong, representative peasant movement (see also Feranil, 2008). Ten years into

being however it has de facto disintegrated, or as one member put it: “we were an active member of

UNORKA, but maybe there is no more UNORKA”. After briefly elaborating on the process of peasant

mobilization, we will attempt to reconstruct this evolution. It will be shown how UNORKA’s failure is

largely a consequence of an interplay between the NGO-community (PEACE) and a conservative

government bent on weakening (peasant) mobilization for agrarian reform, thereby employing

CARP’s potential for institutional channeling to the fullest. We will hereby rely primarily on

qualitative research material gathered during interviews with (former) UNORKA-leaders from

different organizational levels, (former) grassroots members, (former) PEACE-personnel as well as

other external observers.

Some words on peasant mobilization

As mentioned earlier, a fundamental requirement for ‘pro-poor’ agrarian reform to materialize is

autonomous mobilization by the peasantry itself, in order to enhance its political voice (Borras, 1999).

However, autonomous mobilization is a difficult process riven with potential pitfalls. Essentially there

are two crucial requirements for (peasant) mobilization in order for it to be successful: capacity –

commanding adequate (financial, human, political, …) resources to undertake desirable action – and

autonomy – the ability to decide in an autonomous manner while at the same time retaining the ability

to critically engage outside actors (Fox, 1993). However, the rural poor often lack the capacity to

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initiate such a process. This is where external allies – such as NGO’s, the media, reform-oriented state

officials, … – can fulfill a crucial role through the provision of both positive and anti-negative

incentives (Fox, 1997). These external allies have their own limitations and interests however, and

there is always a danger that they are not able (or willing) to genuinely empower the rural poor by

means of enhancing their autonomy and/or capacity. It were these considerations that formed the

rationale for the bibingka strategy, which placed a premium on autonomous peasant mobilization from

below (initially) assisted by PEACE-organizers.

2000-2005: a strong movement on shaky foundations

Despite the centrality of autonomous peasant mobilization from below in the bibingka strategy,

UNORKA was not an autonomous initiative by the rural poor, which is understandable however given

the lack of capacity on the part of many ARB’s. Instead, it was ‘engineered’ in a rather top-down

manner by PEACE-personnel, other activists, academics and politicians. It was meant to become not

merely an instrument in the land struggle, but also an institutional building block in the wider struggle

for sociopolitical emancipation waged by the pluralist left. Learning from the experience of ‘new rural

movements’ (see Moyo en Yeros, 2005) elsewhere, UNORKA’s founding principles were (a)

(eventual) autonomy guaranteed by an organic leadership, (b) constant capacity-building at different

organizational levels (c) internal democracy and ‘poly-centric decision-making’ by the base, also

related to the need to accommodate local realities and concerns regarding CARP-implementation. All

this required the development of an institutional framework allowing for such widespread participation

and accountability. Careful deliberation eventually resulted in a structure providing for a regionally

rotating national leadership, elected by a general assembly (for 3 months) consisting of representatives

from the regional chapters (Negros, Visayas, Mindanao). These in turn form the umbrella uniting

provincial level chapters, which ultimately link up to the grassroots. UNORKA as well as its

grassroots members have always been fundamentally dependent upon PEACE-assistance for all

aspects of mobilization: organizing and financing (PEACE is also the one managing UNORKA’s

budget) assemblies and mass actions, handling politico-legal matters, engaging new members, ...

Sometimes this dependency even creates situations whereby these grassroots cannot even distinguish

between the local PEACE-NGO and UNORKA or are not even aware of their UNORKA-membership.

PEACE’s overwhelming dominance makes it important to have a basic understanding of its internal

functioning: although formally adhering to the idea/philosophy of ‘poly-centric decision-making’, in

practice PEACE has always been dominated by a small group within the national leadership

possessing ‘movement credentials’, thereby reflecting a failure to abandon the old ‘democratic

centralism’ of the NDF. Despite this strong centralizing tendency however PEACE would – partly

reflecting donor concerns – initially grant UNORKA a considerable degree of autonomy, embodied by

a strong and critical leadership. The now strengthened bibingka strategy was also continuing to deliver

in terms of land redistribution, despite the increasingly hostile stance of the Arroyo-government,

13

which was relegating agrarian reform to the background and was instead opting for a much more

confrontational counterinsurgency strategy (Abinales & Franco, 2007). UNORKA was slowly but

surely developing a reputation as a militant and strong peasant movement, not afraid to pursue more

confrontational means to achieve its aims.

2005-2010: cooptation and disintegration

By 2006 however, PEACE started reining in on UNORKA’s autonomy and started engineering what

is best described as a bottom-up internal coup directed against a national leadership considered too

vocal. This evolution was most outspoken on the southern island of Mindanao, where Enrico Cabanit

had developed a reputation as a strong and autonomous peasant leader, both on the local level as well

as in UNORKA. In 2006 however, Cabanit was brutally assassinated by elements connected to the

landed elite. Being a unifying factor, his death meant a big setback for UNORKA. Subsequently, the

PEACE-leadership would opportunistically manipulate the elections for a new Mindanao leadership –

amongst others by giving ‘voting advice’ through its local NGO MFDC – which was later to become

its mouthpiece in the national assembly. Meanwhile, and despite previous agreements about militant

actions at the DAR-national, PEACE started pressuring UNORKA-leaders into taking a less

confrontational stance towards the government, even on the extremely sensitive issue of the

investigation on Cabanit’s murder.

How to explain this sudden ‘conservative turn’ – which is all the more astonishing considering the

increasingly hostile stance of the government vis-à-vis agrarian reform? Over time some sort of

synergy seemingly developed not only between the PEACE- and UNORKA-leadership, but also

between some elements within the PEACE-leadership and the DAR-national, at the time dominated by

officials with a particularly conservative inclination. These officials were applying a ‘carrot-and-stick’

approach whereby resource flows were politically manipulated in order to selectively co-opt fractions

of the agrarian reform movement as part of a broader and deliberate divide-and-rule strategy. This was

facilitated by a decline in international donor funding for agrarian reform purposes, which increased

competition for scarce government funding. The DAR also started to fidget with the rift between the

social democrats and PEACE – between whom strategic differences had increasingly faded due to the

extinction of the tripartite approach. In the case of PEACE some national leaders – with the silent

approval of their UNORKA-stooges – were tempted into accepting government projects, consultancy

contracts and apparently even bribes, and in turn they would try to appease UNORKA. The PEACE-

leadership thus relinquished its and thereby UNORKA’s – or as one former leader put it: “peasant

leaders should serve the peasant, not the NGO” – autonomy and capacity to critically interrogate state

actions, in exchange for a very limited engagement with a government hostile to their purpose. This

increasingly generated dissatisfaction on the part of many local PEACE-NGO’s, compounding

existing grievances over PEACE’s lack of internal democracy. Because of the far-reaching synergy

14

and dependency between the two, PEACE’s problems were transplanted into UNORKA, which

increasingly had to cope not only with disunity at the national level but also with a widening rift

between on the one hand a national leadership loyal to PEACE and increasingly focusing on self-

preservation and their own ‘fief’; and on the other an increasingly neglected – and fragile, as we will

see next – grassroots base. These problems eventually debouched into the secession – or

‘emancipation’, as some put it – of the majority of local PEACE-networks in 2007 and their formation

of a new NGO-network, RIGHTSNET, which initiated a new peasant movement uniting PO’s under

their guidance: KATARUNGAN. In 2009 a smaller group of PO’s broke away from UNORKA in

order to form a new peasant coalition in Visayas, PESANTE, which now tries to function in a

genuinely autonomous manner. Some involved describe this ‘ebb and flow’ and fragmentation in the

organizational landscape as part of a normal learning- or emancipatory process – albeit one with huge

consequences for the peasantry – thereby pointing to internal factors such as a lack of democracy

and/or resources. While these problems are undeniably real, this case study has also revealed a

significant amount of external meddling, particularly in the form of CARP’s use as an instrument of

institutional channeling.

DESCENDING INTO THE GRASSROOTS: ASSOCIATIVE FRAGILI TY IN THE

AGRARIAN REFORM SECTOR

While it is commonplace to focus on (peasant) mobilization for agrarian reform and its interaction

with state actors, as was just attempted here (see also Borras, 1999; Franco, 2008), there is a tendency

to neglect the grassroots, in our case consisting of CARP-beneficiaries, and then particularly the post-

redistribution struggle for access in the real market in which CARP has brought them. In this part, it

will be argued how forces emanating from this real market can have a profoundly demobilizing effect

on the grassroots agrarian reform sector (Kay, 2001), particularly within the commercial sector. Here,

peasant associations are increasingly characterized by what de Medeiros (2007) denominated

associative fragility, which has far-reaching consequences, not only for the (outcomes of the) agrarian

reform process itself, but also for agrarian reform advocacy.

The potential of cooperation versus associative fragility

As institutional mechanisms for collective action through resource pooling, peasant associations such

as cooperatives are said to have several economic benefits for their members, mainly related to the

provision of greater access to credit and information as well as to the realization of economies of scale

(see Brass, 2007 for a critical discussion on cooperativism). Moreover, collectivist arrangements can

15

also fulfill a sociopolitical function, and are often hailed by agrarian populists as ‘democratic spaces

within capitalism’ or ‘agents of equity’ which create a ‘leveling tendency’. As such, they are imputed

with the potential to reconcile market liberalization with social equity. Thus, theoretically,

institutionalized cooperation between the rural poor has the potential to strengthen them in their

struggle for access in the real market.

The DAR seems to share this positive appraisal of collectivist arrangements, as it strongly encourages

– and in some cases, particularly in commercial plantation areas, practically obliges – ARB’s to form

Peoples’ Organizations (PO’s), first in the form of an association, later to be transformed into a

cooperative. This collectivist bias seems to be largely motivated by economic concerns, as aside from

land redistribution the DAR’s main concern is the maintenance of the industrial pace. Despite their

top-down imposition, most ARB’s too seem to recognize – at least explicitly – a PO’s potential for

socio-economic and sociopolitical empowerment. Because of limited capacity on the part of the DAR,

the CDA (Cooperative Development Authority) and ARB’s themselves, NGO’s have a crucial role in

assisting these PO’s. Despite their theoretical potential however, an increasing number of Philippine

agrarian reform PO’s seemingly fails to meet these high expectations. Instead, they are often

characterized by increasing fragility of the institutional arrangements underlying them, leading to their

de facto failure and sometimes even to severe fragmentation of the agrarian reform sector. In what

follows, we will use a case study as the basis for a broader discussion on the potential causes and

consequences of this evolution.

Associative fragility in commercial areas: the case of Marsman banana plantation

While – as turned out from discussions with organizers elsewhere – associative fragility is to some

extent an issue everywhere, it is undoubtedly most pronounced in commercial plantation areas where –

not coincidentally, as will be argued – real market forces are most unrelenting. While perhaps not

entirely representative for the situation in the rest of the Philippines, the following case study

nonetheless enables us to illustrate how a process of increasing associative fragility and fragmentation

in the agrarian reform sector unfolds on the grassroots level, thereby identifying some underlying

processes and tendencies which might be observable elsewhere.

Setting the scene: the real banana market

Since its emergence in the 1960s, the ‘banana belt’ on the southern island of Mindanao has been

dominated by a politically and economically powerful commercial elite made up of MNC’s working

with and through – for example by leasing land from them – domestic landed elites. This ‘banana

aristocracy’ is allied under the PBGEA (Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association), a

powerful cartel-like institution which dominates virtually the entire sector (Borras, 2005a). After the

16

10-year deferment period for commercial farmland ended, the landed elite would employ all means

possible to evade CARP-implementation. Meanwhile however some MNC’s began to see CARP as an

opportunity to sideline their traditional domestic allies by instead forging direct contract growing- or

lease- agreements with ARB’s, thereby spurring elite competition. In combination with an increasing

number of smaller (independent) buyer-traders and a buoyant export market, ARB’s now find

themselves enmeshed in an increasingly competitive real market struggle for access to the ‘fruits’ of

banana land. Supposedly mediating this struggle is the DAR, which is however equally subject to –

especially local – power politics and which often finds itself at cross-purposes with the broader policy

framework.

The initial divide: Marsman vs MFDC

DAMARBDEVCO, company vehicle

The end of the 10-year deferment period in 1998 encouraged the Marsman management (MEPI) to

devise a scheme to meet its CARP-obligations while losing as little ‘access’ to its 1024 ha. banana

plantation (located in Sto. Tomas) as possible (see also Borras, 2005b). The final arrangement –

personally hailed by president Arroyo as a success story – was indeed very favorable to MEPI:

although it would ‘donate’ the land to its farmworkers, these would in turn grant MEPI usufruct for 60

years. Meanwhile ARB’s would remain regular farmworkers working at minimum wage, but were in

return promised an additional profit share. Despite its clearly onerous character, MEPI – through the

use of such methods as propaganda, patronage, ‘social control’ and outright coercion – succeeded in

convincing the majority of its workforce into signing the agreement. Subsequently, these ARB’s

would be united in a company-supported PO, DAMARBDEVCO, which would be led by MEPI-

picked ARB’s, most of them former management-staff.

MARBCO, new-born autonomy?

Meanwhile, despite the hostile environment, MFDC, the local PEACE-NGO, succeeded in convincing

part of the farmworkers not to give in to MEPI and instead to start mobilizing for compulsory

acquisition of ‘their’ land. For this purpose another PO was initiated, which became a cooperative in

2000: MARBCO. After a long and contentious struggle, MARBCO’s eventual installation on the land

would be completed in 2003, after which MFDC-assistance would gradually fade out. From 2003-

2008 MARBCO sold its class-A bananas to Marsman under an extremely unfair transitory

arrangement. In 2008 MARBCO-members were tempted into signing an equally unfair long-term

contract with SUMIFRU, a big MNC specialized in agribusiness operations.

17

Associative fragility and fragmentation: from 2 to 5 PO’s

SIFARBCO, NGO-failure

Although relatively successful in terms of finances – largely thanks to MEPI-support –

DAMARBDEVCO would increasingly be affected by dissatisfaction on the part of a majority of its

members, all rank-and-file. This was rooted not only in MEPI’s failure to live up to its promises, but

also in a growing polarization between on the one hand the board, consisting of MEPI-stooges and

enjoying generous privileges, and on the other an increasingly disillusioned membership whose

situation had not fundamentally improved. It was the latter group which was convinced by MFDC –

through its local UNORKA-contact – to form a new association (2004), recently transformed into a

cooperative (2010): SIFARBCO. After the PO was initiated MFDC convinced the members to forcibly

occupy the land they worked, but because this land was still legally MEPI’s, the sole consequence was

the ARB’s termination by MEPI and the start of a long and expensive legal battle, with MEPI now

clearly on the advantage. Meanwhile, MFDC-support started to fade out, and SIFARBCO now

reckons on an on-call lawyer and the municipal DAR – explicitly concerned with “keeping up the

productivity” (MARO Sto. Tomas, personal communication), which often implies supporting the

stronger market player. As of now, SIFARBCO-members are re-instated as regular farmworkers, still

bound to the onerous MEPI-agreement, and still struggling for their CLOA (Certificate of Land

Ownership Award) to be released by the DAR.

MIFARBCO, genuine internal issues?

In 2005, the majority of MARBCO-members broke away and initiated a fourth cooperative:

MIFARBCO. At first sight the reasons for this move seem to be of an internal nature, as most ARB’s

concerned were dissatisfied with MARBCO’s collectivist production system, which they believe

encourages free-riding and corruption. Apparently some MARBCO board members were rigging

elections in order to continuously enjoy privileges connected to board membership. A process of class

formation and - polarization was slowly unfolding, with a board elite assuming a more comfortable

lifestyle – hiring other ARB’s to do their work in the field, driving motorcycles, … – while the rank-

and-file was still living in dire poverty. MIFARBCO and the more individualized farming system

(under an individual CLOA) under which it would operate was perceived as the magical solution for

these kinds of excesses. Digging deeper however, there were also indications that external meddling

contributed to or at least facilitated the split, since at around this time a conflict was unfolding between

two class-B banana buyers – for legal reasons MIFARBCO was still bound to SUMIFRU for class-A

bananas – who were formerly cooperating in buying from MARBCO. Now, the two groups are

working with either one of two, feeding suspicion amongst some ARB’s that one of these buyers was

somehow encouraging MIFARBCO’s formation.

18

MEDCO: back to the former master

Recently yet another group was formed, this time a break-away from MIFARBCO: MEDCO. Despite

MIFARBCO’s intention to mediate rent-seeking behavior through individual empowerment, the issue

of self-interest again played a role, with the current MEDCO-board consisting of former MIFARBCO-

officers who were not re-elected. The most striking fact however is that MEDCO immediately entered

into a (yet again onerous) contract growing agreement with MEPI – the one which ARB’s initially

wanted to emancipate themselves from – whereby a signing bonus offered to some members seems to

have been a decisive factor.

Associative fragility and fragmentation: interrelated causes

The traditional – but inadequate – explanation: internal dynamics

The failure of (agrarian reform) cooperative arrangements is not unique to the Philippines and has

been described elsewhere (see for example Kay, 2001). There is a strong tendency – also for most

DAR-personnel, ARB’s as well as some NGO-personnel – to attribute such failure mainly to internal

dynamics, resulting from a combination of (1) familiar problems associated with collective farming

schemes, such as a lack of individual work incentives (2) severe financial mismanagement (3) graft

and corruption, mostly on the part of board members (4) all compounded by a lack of internal

democracy. While these internal problems are undeniably real, as clearly illustrated by the Marsman

case, others (Jonakin, 1996; Brass, 2007) have convincingly shown how these internal dynamics need

to be analyzed within the wider context. Loyal to this line of reasoning, it will be argued that it is an

interplay between internal associative- and external real market dynamics that is having an unsettling

effect on an ‘ill-prepared’ agrarian reform sector.

Weak terms of entry in the real market

That ARB’s are often ‘ill-prepared’ for real market participation is related to the question of improper

and/or inadequate external post-transfer assistance. Firstly, part of the NGO-community was/is

characterized by a rather narrow-minded vision on agrarian reform as land redistribution and on PO’s

as vehicles for this purpose. Thereby the wider potential of these cooperative arrangements for

emancipation in the real market is sometimes neglected, as was the problem with MFDC. This can

partly be related to the NDF-history of most PEACE-organizers, who were imbued with a rather

simplistic feudal vision on the country’s political economy, which a priori discharged market forces as

instruments of capitalist exploitation (see also Putzel, 1990). Secondly, the Philippine NGO-

community as a whole has been hard-hit by a severe decrease in (foreign) funding. Thirdly and

arguably most importantly, CARP suffers from a blatant shortage and failure of post-transfer support

from the part of the Philippine government. In combination with very limited existing capacity on the

19

part of most ARB’s – due to poverty (compounded by a costly acquisition struggle, high amortization

payments, …), a lack of education, … – this lack of external assistance severely weakens their terms

of entry in the real market relative to vested elite interests.

Real market subordination and -cooptation

How exactly ARB’s often become/remain subordinated in the real market is aptly illustrated by

prevailing marketing arrangements on Marsman. While it is clear for outside observers and ARB’s

themselves that there are economies of scale in both the production and marketing of bananas –

especially when ‘direct marketing schemes’ to export markets can be set up – we have instead

witnessed the seemingly irrational tendency for ARB’s to split up into different groups, all involved in

slightly different but equally onerous marketing arrangements. What is crucial to understand however

is that these different marketing arrangements are not merely a consequence but also an underlying

cause of associative fragility and fragmentation. In particular, we need to situate this evolution against

the background of an intensifying struggle for access between market makers (Mackintosh, 1990)

employing traditional as well as more modern means of social control and patronage in order to co-opt

sections of the ARB-community (see also Franco & Borras, 2007). Often such cooptation involves

‘tripartite agreements’ between agribusiness, local DAR-officials and ARB-leaders; a modus operandi

simplified by the decentralized nature of CARP-implementation, which is prone to rent-seeking

behavior – thereby feeding a system of corruption within the PO. In the case of Marsman, the main

protagonists in this struggle for access are MEPI and SUMIFRU, both trying to convince ARB’s to

cast their lot in with them. This tendency towards elite-cooptation can however be noticed in some

form in virtually all areas/settings, sometimes even involving violence between ARB’s fighting ‘proxy

wars’ for their respective elite protégées, as happened on the nearby Hijo banana plantation.

Underlying the real market constellation: the wider policy context

As such, while now formally landowners, ARB’s genuine access to the land remains fundamentally

limited due to an interplay between a lack of ARB-capacity – related to inadequate external

assistance – on the one hand, and the fundamental dominance of real market makers on the other.

“Members of subordinate classes that enter markets with disproportionately limited shares of

the means of production will be regulated by a market organized to the material advantage of

the dominant classes” (Akram-Lodhi, 2007: p. 1441)

To fully account for this real market constellation however, we still need to go one step further, since

it is in turn profoundly influenced by the broader policy context. It has been argued elsewhere how the

policy- and macroeconomic environment can work against a viable agrarian reform sector (Kay,

2001). Jonakin (1996) for example has shown how the disintegration of Nicaraguan agrarian reform

cooperatives since 1990 coincided with changes in the political environment, with a new right-wing

20

government placing a premium on market forces and budgetary discipline. Not only did this

orientation imply the downscaling of post-transfer support to ARB’s; the policy of market

liberalization also tended to favor stronger market players, eventually contributing to a reconcentration

of land ownership.

In the Philippines too, the government’s focus on budgetary discipline and debt repayment are

curtailing (post-transfer) support to ARB’s and smallholder-agriculture in general, although agrarian

reform has never been a budgetary priority anyway – as illustrated by the severe underfunding of the

DAR. Meanwhile, a policy bias towards free market forces and export agriculture have simultaneously

– both directly and indirectly – strengthened the position of certain market makers, especially

agribusiness. Meanwhile at least part of the NGO-community has seemingly failed to account for this

complex constellation by means of providing ARB’s with appropriate assistance – not only geared

towards the acquisition of land – and a viable cooperative alternative aimed at strengthening ARB’s

position in the real market.

Potential consequences

The failure and disintegration of the agrarian reform sector – and the leveling tendencies imputed to it

– has historically proven to be the precursor of a process of individualization and eventually

reconcentration of land ownership; as such often eliminating the initial (limited) redistributive impact

of agrarian reform (Jonakin, 1996; Brass, 2001). In the Philippines too, there are initial – not

necessarily formal – signs of reconcentration of land ownership and related to this restratification of

the peasantry – as we also noticed in some of the Marsman cooperatives. The ultimate social outcomes

of CARP – a new ARB-elite, reconcentration in the hands of both the traditional elite and MNC’s,

outright MNC-preponderance, … – however are as of now undetermined and deserve further scrutiny.

Meanwhile, and more important for our purposes, associative fragility and fragmentation are having

profound consequences for agrarian reform advocacy, since it is this increasingly fragile grassroots

base which ultimately forms the ‘human capital’ for any mobilizational effort. Where the up-scaling of

local protest is possible to some extent during the struggle for land redistribution, in the post-

redistribution struggle for access we can instead witness an increased localization and

individualization of the ARB’s struggle for empowerment, making them extremely vulnerable to elite

capture. This can be illustrated by the difficulties encountered by grassroots up-scaling initiatives for

marketing purposes, where – aside from more practical problems related to a lack of capacity – the

issues of elite-cooptation and (related) self-interest often represent a severe obstacle for the long-term

institutionalization of cooperation.

21

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

Given the inclination of the Philippine elite to employ (rhetoric on) agrarian reform as an instrument

of counterinsurgency and social control, this article has attempted to critically interrogate CARP as a

more sophisticated governmental response to (radical) peasant mobilization. It has been argued that,

despite its fundamental flaws and limited redistributive potential, CARP has been instrumental in

weakening demands for genuine agrarian reform. Specifically, as an instrument of institutional

channeling, the program has not only contributed to the creation and deepening of horizontal as well

as vertical – illustrated by the case of UNORKA – rifts within the broad agrarian reform movement,

but it has also convinced the bulk of the movement to engage in CARP’s essentially apolitical

implementation. Meanwhile at the grassroots, CARP brings ill-prepared ARB’s into a real market

essentially organized – by means of the wider policy context – to accommodate the needs of (factions

of) the elite, particularly capitalist agriculture and agribusiness. By means of a case study on a

commercial banana plantation, it has been illustrated how forces emanating from this real market, in

interaction with internal associative dynamics, are (potentially) having an unsettling and even

demobilizing effect on the grassroots agrarian reform sector, which is increasingly showing signs of

disintegration. This is not only (further) weakening the existing agrarian reform movement, but also

hinders new grassroots initiatives – exactly what is needed to transform the real market and the

institutions underlying it.

The latter insight also invites us to transcend the initial scope of this article – interrogating CARP as

an elite response to rural unrest and peasant mobilization – by raising wider questions about the

viability and scope of (peasant-) resistance and mobilization in a ‘market era’. Particularly, CARP – in

concordance with other contemporary agrarian reform initiatives – can also be approached as an

integral part of an essentially elitist (global) development project which aims at promoting the

expansion and acceptance of (real) market forces in the countryside (Ghimire, 2005; Patel, 2006;

Akram-Lodhi, 2007). Initiatives like CARP then constitute the ideal instrument – through their

demobilizing potential – to contain and manage resistance to this project while leaving its basic tenets

intact. Ultimately, the market itself does the rest, or as one seasoned observer of the Philippine peasant

movement put it:

“strong mobilization was possible when the enemy and the agenda were clear, as during

decolonization or the struggle against Marcos. In the market age of opportunities the enemy is

no longer clear, and there is no more long-term project”.

22

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QUALITATIVE MATERIAL

Individual interviews (selected list, not exhaustive):

• July 30/August 4: Salvador Feranil (Philnet, Davao)

• August 3: MFDC (Davao)

• August 4: Elvira Quintela (AFRIM, Davao)

• August 7: Harold Berayo (KASAMAKA-Mindanao, Tagum)

• August 23: Abelardo Neyal (TFM-Mindanao, Davao)

• August 23: Arnold van de Broeck (Broederlijk delen, Davao)

• August 27: Atty. Alcomendras (lawyer specialized in agrarian reform, Tagum)

• August 27: Marsman management (Sto. Tomas)

• August 29: Marilou Cueto-Tapia (BRETHREN, Tagum)

• August 30: Nestor Tapia (RIGHTSNET, Davao)

• August 31: Danny Carranza (RIGHTSNET, Quezon City)

• September 1: Danny Bernal (QUARDDS-KATARUNGAN, Lucena City)

• September 3: Vangie Mendoza (PESANTE, Quezon City)

• September 4: Ed Quitoriano (consultant, Pasig City)

• September 5: Ric Reyes (RIGHTSNET+FDC, Pasig City)

• September 6: Armando Jarilla (TFM, Quezon City)

Area visits (+ interviews):

• August 3: MCBCI (Mabini)

• August 5: UFARBMCO (Kapalong)

• August 6-7: DPRDI (Tagum)

• August 8-10: Menzi’s plantation - MARBA (Mati)

• August 25-27: Marsman plantation (Sto.Tomas)

Focus group discussions:

• July 31: UNORKA Davao del Norte-council (Panabo)

• August 11: AHEAD-ARC (Mati)

• August 25-26: different groups of Marsman-ARB’s (Sto.Tomas)