MODIFYING EXECUTIVE ORDER NO.

129 REORGANIZING AND

STRENGTHENING THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRARIAN REFORM AND
FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
(Executive Order No. 129-A) - July 27, 1987

I. Objectives

The following are the objectives of Executive Order No. 129-A, to wit:

 To modify EO No. 129 in order to reorganize structurally and functionally

the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
 To recognize that the DAR shall be responsible for implementing the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)
 To recognize that there is a need to strengthen and expand the functions of
the DAR to be more effective in implementing the CARP
 To declare a State Policy of completely abolishing all remnants of feudalism
and all other types of unjust tenurial arrangements, implement the
comprehensive agrarian reform program, increase the productivity of the
direct producers, and strengthen the agricultural base for increased
industrialization.

II. Amendments to the Law / Historical Background of DAR

In 1978, when the country adopted the parliamentary form of government,
the DAR was renamed Ministry of Agrarian Reform.
On July 26, 1987, the Department by virtue of Executive Order No. 129-A
was organized structurally and functionally. This E.O. expanded the powers and
operations of the Department.
On September 27, 2004, President Arroyo, signed E.O. No. 364, and the
Department of Agrarian Reform was renamed to Department of Land Reform. This
E.O. also broadened the scope of the Department, making it responsible for all land
reform in the country. It also placed the Philippine Commission on Urban Poor
(PCUP) under its supervision and control. Recognition of the ownership of
ancestral domain by indigenous peoples also became the responsibility of this new
department, under the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).
 On August 23, 2005, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed Executive
Order No. 456 and renamed the Department of Land Reform back to Department
of Agrarian Reform, since "the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law goes beyond
just land reform but includes the totality of all factors and support services
designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries.”

Under the Aquino administration, the DAR which is the lead agency for
CARP implementation is bent on sustaining the gains of agrarian reform through
its three major components– Land Tenure Improvement (LTI), Program
Beneficiaries Development (PBD) and Agrarian Justice Delivery (AJD).

Together with the efforts to fight graft and corruption, it is imperative to have
institutional reforms within DAR as a complement to the abovementioned DAR
components as well as give credence, transparency and accountability at all sectors
of the DAR bureaucracy achieved through agrarian reform.

III. Analysis of its Success

Up until now, the Department of Agrarian Reform remains to be the lead
agency in the implementation of agrarian reform and sustainable development in
the country. Thus, the question of its success is a matter of analyzing the efficiency
and effectiveness in its projects and role as instrumentality of the government in
promoting social justice in matters of agrarian relations.
The efficiency and effectiveness of the Department is a subjective as its
programs are still in process of implementation. However, the performance of the
Department as a whole can be critiqued in its success in the land distribution from
the time that EO 129-A was enacted. This can be thoroughly analyzed in relation to
the CARP.
Last June 2016, the Philippine government’s agrarian reform law reached its
28th year of implementation with completion nowhere in sight. The CARP and its
extension, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms
(Carper) had provisions that were generally favorable to their intended
beneficiaries. But Carp and Carper were also essentially the result of a compromise
between pro and anti-agrarian reform blocs in Congress and thus also contained
provisions, inserted by anti-reform, that are considered legal loopholes.

Despite all the gains, anti-reform legislators still managed to insert a “killer
amendment” that allowed landowners to determine who would be beneficiaries and
who would be excluded from the program. Other objectionable provisions are
those expanding the list of exempted lands, allowing local governments to acquire
agricultural lands beyond the 5-hc retention limit and the deprioritization of
seasonal and other non-regular farmworkers as qualified beneficiaries.

Major CARP constraints, such as landlord compensation based on market

value and the beneficiary payment formula based on gross production, have been
retained. In five years under the Aquino administration, less than 20 percent of the
goal for land distribution has been accomplished. As of December 2015, there
remained a balance of about 477,000 ha of undistributed lands while 1 million ha
of agricultural lands inexplicably vanished from the public records. To camouflage
its lacklustre performance, the DAR has resorted to merely reporting the issuances
of notices of coverage as accomplishments while keeping from public view the
more essential indicators of certificates of land ownership awards (CLOAs) and,
even more crucial, emancipation patents (EPs).1

IV. Constraints and Impediments

A. Snail-paced implementation

Land distribution has been moving at a snail’s pace —marked by a

consistent and chronic failure to meet annual targets, the misrepresentation of
performance indicators and lack of political commitment by the DAR leadership.
In the distribution of privately owned and/or privately controlled landholdings,
which constitute the heart and soul of agrarian reform, the implementation of Carp
and Carper has been found to be most wanting and negligent.

B. Landowner resistance

Chronic landowner resistance continues to plague the program with

numerous reports of farmers being evicted, harassed, intimidated and killed by
landlords and hired goons. Land grabbing and land-use conversions are
intensifying even in landholdings that have been covered for distribution.
These converted and grabbed lands are often misappropriated for non-
agricultural purposes, such as real estate development, tourism, mining and special
economic zones by foreign and domestic land speculators.

1
http://opinion.inquirer.net/95277/can-duterte-fix-agrarian-reform#ixzz4UeabHTV3
 C. Inadequate support services

The neglect by government agencies led by the DAR and the Department of
Agriculture to provide timely and adequate support services to agrarian reform
beneficiaries (ARBs) have prevented the latter from becoming economically viable
producers and jeopardizing whatever land distribution may have accomplished.
Only 44 percent of agrarian reform beneficiaries have had access to support
services packages with 27 percent of them in so-called agrarian reform
communities (ARCs).

As with other farmers, a majority of ARBs source their credit from loan
sharks, who charge usurious interest rates. ARBs in commercial farms and
plantations are forced to rely on former landowners and corporations for support
services.

V. Recommendations
After 28 years of implementation of a program meant to emancipate the
Filipino peasantry from serf-like servitude to elite landowning interests, the
agrarian reform goal remains elusive with final resolution nowhere on the horizon.
To start the process of fixing this dismal state, the current administration must
immediately take the following steps:

First, extend the land distribution component of agrarian reform since it is

obvious that the DAR was unable to complete it by June of 2016.

Second, provide that all unpaid amortizations of farmers be condoned and all
future land distribution be made free of cost to the beneficiaries.

Third, constitute a high level independent commission of upright and

credible citizens with legal powers to evaluate and audit the performance of the
DAR, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and LandBank, and
investigate all circumventions of coverage and human rights violations against
farmers and farmworkers, their leaders and supporters.

Lastly, the goal of equitable land redistribution must be made a permanent

feature of the state’s policy agenda. Land redistribution is a continuing process that
will necessarily have to be resorted to time and again in order to assure that there is
no backtracking on the agrarian reform agenda.