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CRUZ, J.:
In ancient mythology, Antaeus was a terrible giant who blocked and challenged Hercules for his life on his way to Mycenae after
performing his eleventh labor. The two wrestled mightily and Hercules flung his adversary to the ground thinking him dead, but Antaeus
rose even stronger to resume their struggle. This happened several times to Hercules' increasing amazement. Finally, as they continued
grappling, it dawned on Hercules that Antaeus was the son of Gaea and could never die as long as any part of his body was touching his
Mother Earth. Thus forewarned, Hercules then held Antaeus up in the air, beyond the reach of the sustaining soil, and crushed him to
death.
Mother Earth. The sustaining soil. The giver of life, without whose invigorating touch even the powerful Antaeus weakened and died.
The cases before us are not as fanciful as the foregoing tale. But they also tell of the elemental forces of life and death, of men and
women who, like Antaeus need the sustaining strength of the precious earth to stay alive.
"Land for the Landless" is a slogan that underscores the acute imbalance in the distribution of this precious resource among our people.
But it is more than a slogan. Through the brooding centuries, it has become a battle-cry dramatizing the increasingly urgent demand of
the dispossessed among us for a plot of earth as their place in the sun.
Recognizing this need, the Constitution in 1935 mandated the policy of social justice to "insure the well-being and economic security
of all the people," 1 especially the less privileged. In 1973, the new Constitution affirmed this goal adding specifically that "the State
shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, enjoyment and disposition of private property and equitably diffuse property ownership
and profits." 2 Significantly, there was also the specific injunction to "formulate and implement an agrarian reform program aimed at
emancipating the tenant from the bondage of the soil." 3
The Constitution of 1987 was not to be outdone. Besides echoing these sentiments, it also adopted one whole and separate Article XIII
on Social Justice and Human Rights, containing grandiose but undoubtedly sincere provisions for the uplift of the common people.
These include a call in the following words for the adoption by the State of an agrarian reform program:
SEC. 4. The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers,
who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share
of the fruits thereof. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject
to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as the Congress may prescribe, taking into account ecological, developmental,
or equity considerations and subject to the payment of just compensation. In determining retention limits, the State shall respect
the right of small landowners. The State shall further provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.
Earlier, in fact, R.A. No. 3844, otherwise known as the Agricultural Land Reform Code, had already been enacted by the Congress of
the Philippines on August 8, 1963, in line with the above-stated principles. This was substantially superseded almost a decade later by