Agrarian Law and Social Legislation

Atty. Steve Paolo Arellano Mercano

(a) Agrarian Reform means redistribution of lands, regardless of crops or fruits produced, to
farmers and regular farmworkers who are landless, irrespective of tenurial arrangement, to
include the totality of factors and support services designed to lift the economic status of the
beneficiaries and all other arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of lands, such
as production or profit-sharing, labor administration, and the distribution of shares of stocks,
which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.
(b) Agriculture, Agricultural Enterprise or Agricultural Activity means the cultivation of the soil,
planting of crops, growing of fruit trees, raising of livestock, poultry or fish, including the
harvesting of such farm products, and other farm activities and practices performed by a farmer
in conjunction with such farming operations done by person whether natural or juridical.
(c) Agricultural Land refers to land devoted to agricultural activity as defined in this Act and not
classified as mineral, forest, residential, commercial or industrial land.
(d) Agrarian Dispute refers to any controversy relating to tenurial arrangements, whether
leasehold, tenancy, stewardship or otherwise, over lands devoted to agriculture, including
disputes concerning farmworkers' associations or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing,
maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of such tenurial arrangements.
It includes any controversy relating to compensation of lands acquired under this Act and other
terms and conditions of transfer of ownership from landowners to farmworkers, tenants and other
agrarian reform beneficiaries, whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of farm
operator and beneficiary, landowner and tenant, or lessor and lessee.
Luz Farms vs Secretary of Dar

The transcripts of the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission of

1986 on the meaning of the word "agricultural," clearly show that it
was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution to include
livestock and poultry industry in the coverage of the constitutionallymandated agrarian reform program of the Government.
Milestones Farms vs Office of the President
It is the DAR Secretary who is vested with such jurisdiction and authority to exempt
and/or exclude a property from CARP coverage based on the factual circumstances of
each case and in accordance with law and applicable jurisprudence. In addition, albeit
parenthetically, Secretary Villa had already granted the conversion into residential and
golf courses use of nearly one-half of the entire area originally claimed as exempt from
CARP coverage because it was allegedly devoted to livestock production.

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Who can Approve and revoke stock distribution plans

under the CARL? What was the basis?
(1) THE PARC has jurisdiction to revoke HLIs SDP under the doctrine of
necessary implication.
Under Sec. 31 of RA 6657, as implemented by DAO 10, the authority to approve
the plan for stock distribution of the corporate landowner belongs to PARC. Contrary to
petitioner HLIs posture, PARC also has the power to revoke the SDP which it previously
approved. It may be, as urged, that RA 6657 or other executive issuances on agrarian
reform do not explicitly vest the PARC with the power to revoke/recall an approved SDP.
Such power or authority, however, is deemed possessed by PARC under the principle of
necessary implication, a basic postulate that what is implied in a statute is as much a
part of it as that which is expressed.
Following the doctrine of necessary implication, it may be stated that the
conferment of express power to approve a plan for stock distribution of the agricultural
land of corporate owners necessarily includes the power to revoke or recall the approval
of the plan. To deny PARC such revocatory power would reduce it into a toothless
agency of CARP, because the very same agency tasked to ensure compliance by the
corporate landowner with the approved SDP would be without authority to impose
sanctions for non-compliance with it.

Is SEC. 31 Unconstitutional?
[The Court actually refused to pass upon the constitutional question because it was not
raised at the earliest opportunity and because the resolution thereof is not the lis
mota of the case. Moreover, the issue has been rendered moot and academic since
SDO is no longer one of the modes of acquisition under RA 9700.]

Did the Supreme Court Uphold the stock revocation of the

SDP?
(3) YES, the revocation of the HLIs SDP valid. [NO, the PARC did NOT gravely abuse
its discretion in revoking the subject SDP and placing the hacienda under CARPs
compulsory acquisition and distribution scheme.]
The revocation of the approval of the SDP is valid: (1) the mechanics and
timelines of HLIs stock distribution violate DAO 10 because the minimum individual
allocation of each original FWB of 18,804.32 shares was diluted as a result of the use of
man days and the hiring of additional farmworkers; (2) the 30-year timeframe for HLIto-FWBs stock transfer is contrary to what Sec. 11 of DAO 10 prescribes.

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Does the Non-impairment clause bar the court from

reviewing the validity of a partially implemented SDP?
A law authorizing interference, when appropriate, in the contractual relations
between or among parties is deemed read into the contract and its implementation
cannot successfully be resisted by force of the non-impairment guarantee. at the
time of contract execution, as in the case of RA 6657, in relation to DAO 10, vis-vis HLIs
Thus, the non-impairment clause under Section 10, Article II [of the
Constitution] is limited in application to laws about to be enacted that would
in any way derogate from existing acts or contracts by enlarging, abridging
or in any manner changing the intention of the parties thereto.
Alita vs CA
Section 6. The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or stewardship,
whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the disposition or utilization of other
natural resources, including lands of public domain under lease or concession suitable
to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of
indigenous communities to their ancestral lands.
Nota Bene, Sec. 6 of CARL provides that original homestead grantees or their direct
compulsory heirs who still own the original homestead at the time of the approval of this
Act shall retain the same areas as long as they continue to cultivate said homestead.
Natalia Realty vs DAR
The lands are also not subject to CARL, as agricultural land means land
devoted to agricultural activity as defined in this Act and not classified as mineral,
forest, residential, commercial or industrial land.
Indeed, lands not devoted to agricultural activity are outside the coverage of CARL.
These include lands previously converted to non-agricultural uses prior to the
effectivity of CARL by government agencies other than respondent DAR.
Central Mindanao University vs DARAB
c)
Lands actually, directly and exclusively used and found to be necessary for
national defense,school sites and campuses, including experimental farm stations
operated by public or private schools for educational purposes, , shall be exempt
from the coverage of this Act.

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Clearly, a reading of the paragraph shows that, in order to be exempt from the
coverage: 1) the land must be actually, directly, and exclusively used and found to be
necessary; and 2) the purpose is for school sites and campuses, including
experimental farm stations operated by public or private schools for educational
purposes.
DAR VS DARAB
Firstly, in the CMU case, the land involved was not alienable and disposable land of the
public domain because it was reserved by the late President Carlos P. Garcia under
Proclamation No. 476 for the use of Mindanao Agricultural College (now CMU). In
this case, however, the lands fall under the category of alienable and disposable lands
of the public domain suitable for agriculture.
Secondly, in the CMU case, the land was actually, directly and exclusively used
and found to be necessary for school sites and campuses.
To be exempt from the coverage the land per se must be used and not the income
derived therefrom.
SECTION 6. Retention Limits. Except as otherwise provided in this Act, no person may own
or retain, directly or indirectly, any public or private agricultural land, the size of which shall
vary according to factors governing a viable family-size farm, such as commodity produced,
terrain, infrastructure, and soil fertility as determined by the Presidential Agrarian Reform
Council (PARC) created hereunder, but in no case shall retention by the landowner exceed five
(5) hectares.
Three (3) hectares may be awarded to each child of the landowner, subject to the following
qualifications: (1) that he is at least fifteen (15) years of age; and (2) that he is actually tilling the
land or directly managing the farm: Provided, That landowners whose lands have been covered
by Presidential Decree No. 27 shall be allowed to keep the areas originally retained by them
thereunder: Provided, further, That original homestead grantees or their direct compulsory heirs
who still own the original homestead at the time of the approval of this Act shall retain the same
areas as long as they continue to cultivate said homestead.
The right to choose the area to be retained, which shall be compact or contiguous, shall pertain to
the landowner: Provided, however, That in case the area selected for retention by the landowner
is tenanted, the tenant shall have the option to choose whether to remain therein or be a
beneficiary in the same or another agricultural land with similar or comparable features. In case
the tenant chooses to remain in the retained area, he shall be considered a leaseholder and shall
lose his right to be a beneficiary under this Act. In case the tenant chooses to be a beneficiary in
another agricultural land, he loses his right as a leaseholder to the land retained by the landowner.
The tenant must exercise this option within a period of one (1) year from the time the landowner
manifests his choice of the area for retention. In all cases, the security of tenure of the farmers or
farmworkers on the land prior to the approval of this Act shall be respected.
Upon the effectivity of this Act, any sale, disposition, lease, management, contract or transfer of
possession of private lands executed by the original landowner in violation of the Act shall be
null and void: Provided, however, That those executed prior to this Act shall be valid only when

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registered with the Register of Deeds within a period of three (3) months after the effectivity of
this Act. Thereafter, all Registers of Deeds shall inform the Department of Agrarian Reform
(DAR) within thirty (30) days of any transaction involving agricultural lands in excess of five (5)
hectares.
SECTION 10. Exemptions and Exclusions. Lands actually, directly and exclusively
used and found to be necessary for parks, wildlife, forest reserves, reforestation,
fish sanctuaries and breeding grounds, watersheds, and mangroves, national
defense, school sites and campuses including experimental farm stations operated
by public or private schools for educational purposes, seeds and seedlings research
and pilot production centers, church sites and convents appurtenant
thereto, mosque sites and Islamic centers appurtenant thereto, communal burial
grounds and cemeteries, penal colonies and penal farms actually worked by the
inmates, government and private research and quarantine centers and all lands
with eighteen percent (18%) slope and over, except those already developed shall
be exempt from the coverage of the Act.
Mendoza vs Germino
Under Section 50 of R.A. No. 6657, as well as Section 34 of Executive Order No. 129-A, the
DARAB has primary and exclusive jurisdiction, both original and appellate, to determine and
adjudicate all agrarian disputes involving the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program, and other agrarian laws and their implementing rules and regulations.
An agrarian dispute refers to any controversy relating to, among others, tenancy over lands
devoted to agriculture. For a case to involve an agrarian dispute, the following essential
requisites of an agricultural tenancy relationship must be present: (1) the parties are the
landowner and the tenant; (2) the subject is agricultural land; (3) there is consent; (4) the
purpose is agricultural production; (5) there is personal cultivation; and (6) there is sharing of
harvest or payment of rental.

(1) the parties are the landowner and the tenant or agricultural
lessee; (2) the subject matter of the relationship is agricultural
land; (3) there is consent between the parties to the relationship;
(4) the purpose of the relationship is to bring about agricultural
production; (5) there is personal cultivation on the part of the
tenant or agricultural lessee; and (6) the harvest is shared
between the landowner and the tenant or agricultural lessee.

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