[Reuters]

Published date: 22nd Jul 1987

22 July 1987

Reuters News

English

(c) 1987 Reuters Limited

MANILA, July 22, Reuter – Held out as a radical step that would end decades of war and poverty in the Philippine countryside, President Corazon Aquino’s land reform program was instead greeted by a chorus of criticism.

Today‘s presidential order, the 229th since Aquino came to power in February last year, was signed barely five days before her powers of decree are taken away by a new Congress.

The land issue has been marked by months of nationwide controversy that has threatened to deepen existing social divisions at a time when the military is battling to contain communist guerrillas.

Faced by protests from congressmen anxious to protect their legislative powers, threats from landowners to organise militias to resist land-sharing, and warnings by her economic aides that a proposed seven-hectare (17-acre) land ceiling would be unproductive, Aquino took the diplomat’s way out.

She created a skeletal structure, setting out broad objectives, but stopped short of precise definitions.

The decree lays down general principles for redistributing all the country’s farmland to millions of peasants. It leaves to Congress the job of fleshing out the reforms, including the important question of the minimum rice, corn, coconut or sugar land a Filipino needs to own in order to ensure productivity for each crop.

The decree said that while the reforms went through Congress, the government would continue the distribution of rice and corn land, a process started 15 years ago by former president Ferdinand Marcos.

Aquino defended her action, saying she had not given in to any pressure. “It is because I respect what the constitution mandates and that is that the Congress will decide on the retention limits and on the priorities,” she said.

The country’s powerful Roman Catholic church called the nation’s poverty “a scandal of the first order” last week and urged Aquino not to delay the reforms.

“At least it means Aquino has fulfilled her promise,” said Bishop Antonio Fortich, Roman Catholic leader on the island of Negros where the world sugar crisis has driven a bitter wedge between peasant and landlord.

“Never mind the retention limit. You can’t ask for everything,” he added.

Both farmworkers and landowners, however, were not convinced, saying the decree fell far short of expectations.

“We don’t trust congressmen,” said Serge Cherniguin, secretary-general of the National Federation of Sugar Workers. “They don’t look through the eyes of the poor.”

Corazon Sagemueller, president of the Independent Sugar Farmers Assocition, which has over 100 members on Negros, was equally pessimistic.

“The decree will create more hunger because banks will stop all loans and adopt a wait–and-see attitude while Congress debates the reforms. I doubt if this Is the answer,” she said.

The central committee of the Philippine Communist Party put it more bluntly, saying the decree was a shadow of its original drafts and Aquino’s government lacked political will.

In a statement, the party said 722 farms in the country averaged 216 hectares (533 acres) each, while multinational corporations controlled estates of over 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) on the southern island of Mindanao.

“Nevertheless, we are in support of any step forward, however limited this may be, in the continuing quest for social justice in the countryside,” the statement said.

Deogracias Vistan, President of the Land Bank of the Philippines, the main financial agency for the reforms, said what Aquino had done was appropriate.