NAVARRO, Bea Czarina B.

AGRARSOC

Block II-D Atty. Casis

On The CARL Coverage

The Philippine State’s policy, according to Republic Act No. 6657 also

known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), is to prioritize the

welfare and rights of the landless farmers and farmworkers to promote the ends

of social justice and to pursue national development and industrialization. The

aforementioned law aims to redistribute lands including the totality of factors and

support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries,

specifically the landless farmers. The CARL only covers, regardless of tenurial

arrangement and commodity produced, “all public and private agricultural lands,

as provided in Proclamation No. 131 and Executive Order No. 229, including

other lands of the public domain suitable for agriculture 1 .” By definition,

agricultural land is the “land devoted to agricultural activity (as defined in said

law) and not classified as mineral, forest, residential, commercial or industrial

land 2 .“ Hence, lands devoted to livestock, poultry, and swine raising are

classified as industrial lands, and not agricultural lands hence, exempt

1 An Act Instituting A Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to Promote

Social Justice and Industrialization, Providing The Mechanism for Its
Implementation, and for Other Purposes [Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law
of 1988], Republic Act No. 6657, §4 (1988).
2 Id. §3.
from agrarian reform3. Also, the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission of

1986 evidence that the framers of the Constitution never intended to include

lands devoted to livestock and poultry in the coverage of the constitutionally

mandated agrarian reform program 4 . Other lands that are excluded from the

coverage of CARL are lands converted to non-agricultural use before the

effectivity of CARL, agricultural lands reclassified by local government units into

residential, commercial, or industrial uses, lands used for academic or

educational purposes and homesteads.

Recent issues and developments in jurisprudence, however, question

whether a land which was once utilized as pasture lands for cattle which

subsequently became a land where napier grass was grown for feeding purposes

are exempt from the coverage of CARL. In the case of Heirs of Ramon Arce, Sr.

v Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), DAR argues that these lands are no

longer utilized in livestock grazing through an ocular inspection conducted by

Ucag of DAR Region IV-A. CA affirms the ruling of DAR that the land’s status as

industrial has not been maintained because these lands are not anymore

“exclusively, directly and actually devoted to livestock activity up to present5.” The

Court, however, ruled that the subject and is devoted to livestock raising hence,

remains to be excluded from the coverage of CARL. It is undisputed that the

subject lands are devoted to livestock production since the 1950s. Evidence also

3 Heirs of Ramon Arce, Sr., v Department of Agrarian Reform Represented by

Secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes, SCRA (2018).
4 Id.
5 Id.
show that the PCC-DA recommended that the livestock in the subject lands be

transferred because of a fluke infection spread in the area. While the

recommendation was followed, the younger cattle, which were not susceptible to

the said infection remained in the subject lands. Also, the subject lands were still

used for the breeding of livestock. Hence, the subject lands remain exempt from

the coverage of CARL being industrial lands devoted to livestock, poultry, and

swine raising, and not agricultural lands.