Republic Act No.

6657             June 10, 1988

AN ACT INSTITUTING A COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAM TO PROMOTE

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND INDUSTRIALIZATION, PROVIDING THE MECHANISM FOR ITS
IMPLEMENTATION, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress

assembled:

CHAPTER I
Preliminary Chapter

Section 1. Title. — This Act shall be known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of
1988.

Section 2. Declaration of Principles and Policies. — It is the policy of the State to pursue a
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The welfare of the landless farmers and
farmworkers will receive the highest consideration to promote social justice and to move the nation
toward sound rural development and industrialization, and the establishment of owner cultivatorship
of economic-size farms as the basis of Philippine agriculture.

To this end, a more equitable distribution and ownership of land, with due regard to the rights of
landowners to just compensation and to the ecological needs of the nation, shall be undertaken to
provide farmers and farmworkers with the opportunity to enhance their dignity and improve the
quality of their lives through greater productivity of agricultural lands.

The agrarian reform program is 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 farm workers, 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 the priorities and retention limits set forth in this
Act, having taken into account ecological, developmental, and equity considerations, and subject to
the payment of just compensation. The State shall respect the right of small landowners, and shall
provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.

The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers and landowners, as well as cooperatives
and other independent farmers' organizations, to participate in the planning, organization, and
management of the program, and shall provide support to agriculture through appropriate technology
and research, and adequate financial production, marketing and other support services.

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 the
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.

The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own agricultural estates, which shall
be distributed to them in the manner provided by law.

By means of appropriate incentives, the State shall encourage the formation and maintenance of
economic-size family farms to be constituted by individual beneficiaries and small landowners.
The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities, to the
preferential use of communal marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore.t shall provide
support to such fishermen through appropriate technology and research, adequate financial,
production and marketing assistance and other services. The State shall also protect, develop and
conserve such resources. The protection shall extend to offshore fishing grounds of subsistence
fishermen against foreign intrusion. Fishworkers shall receive a just share from their labor in the
utilization of marine and fishing resources.

The State shall be guided by the principles that land has a social function and land ownership has a
social responsibility. Owners of agricultural lands have the obligation to cultivate directly or through
labor administration the lands they own and thereby make the land productive.

The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the proceeds of the agrarian reform
program to promote industrialization, employment and privatization of public sector enterprises.
Financial instruments used as payment for lands shall contain features that shall enhance
negotiability and acceptability in the marketplace.

The State may lease undeveloped lands of the public domain to qualified entities for the
development of capital-intensive farms, and traditional and pioneering crops especially those for
exports subject to the prior rights of the beneficiaries under this Act.

Section 3. Definitions. — For the purpose of this Act, unless the context indicates otherwise:

(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.
 (e) Idle or Abandoned Land refers to any agricultural land not cultivated, tilled or developed
to produce any crop nor devoted to any specific economic purpose continuously for a period
of three (3) years immediately prior to the receipt of notice of acquisition by the government
as provided under this Act, but does not include land that has become permanently or
regularly devoted to non-agricultural purposes.t does not include land which has become
unproductive by reason of force majeure or any other fortuitous event, provided that prior to
such event, such land was previously used for agricultural or other economic purpose.

(f) Farmer refers to a natural person whose primary livelihood is cultivation of land or the
production of agricultural crops, either by himself, or primarily with the assistance of his
immediate farm household, whether the land is owned by him, or by another person under a
leasehold or share tenancy agreement or arrangement with the owner thereof.

(g) Farmworker is a natural person who renders service for value as an employee or laborer
in an agricultural enterprise or farm regardless of whether his compensation is paid on a
daily, weekly, monthly or "pakyaw" basis. The term includes an individual whose work has
ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, a pending agrarian dispute and who has
not obtained a substantially equivalent and regular farm employment.

(h) Regular Farmworker is a natural person who is employed on a permanent basis by an

agricultural enterprise or farm.

(i) Seasonal Farmworker is a natural person who is employed on a recurrent, periodic or

intermittent basis by an agricultural enterprise or farm, whether as a permanent or a non-
permanent laborer, such as "dumaan", "sacada", and the like.

(j) Other Farmworker is a farmworker who does not fall under paragraphs (g), (h) and (i).

(k) Cooperatives shall refer to organizations composed primarily of small agricultural

producers, farmers, farmworkers, or other agrarian reform beneficiaries who voluntarily
organize themselves for the purpose of pooling land, human, technological, financial or other
economic resources, and operated on the principle of one member, one vote. A juridical
person may be a member of a cooperative, with the same rights and duties as a natural
person.

CHAPTER II
Coverage

Section 4. Scope. — The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1989 shall cover, 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.

More specifically the following lands are covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program:

(a) All alienable and disposable lands of the public domain devoted to or suitable for
agriculture. No reclassification of forest or mineral lands to agricultural lands shall be
undertaken after the approval of this Act until Congress, taking into account ecological,
developmental and equity considerations, shall have determined by law, the specific limits of
the public domain.
 (b) All lands of the public domain in excess of the specific limits as determined by Congress
in the preceding paragraph;

(c) All other lands owned by the Government devoted to or suitable for agriculture; and

(d) All private lands devoted to or suitable for agriculture regardless of the agricultural
products raised or that can be raised thereon.

Section 5. Schedule of Implementation. — The distribution of all lands covered by this Act shall be
implemented immediately and completed within ten (10) years from the effectivity thereof.

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.n 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.n 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 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 7. Priorities. — The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in coordination with the
Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) shall plan and program the acquisition and distribution
of all agricultural lands through a period of ten (10) years from the effectivity of this Act. Lands shall
be acquired and distributed as follows:

Phase One: Rice and corn lands under Presidential Decree No. 27; all idle or abandoned lands; all
private lands voluntarily offered by the owners for agrarian reform; all lands foreclosed by the
government financial institutions; all lands acquired by the Presidential Commission on Good
Government (PCGG); and all other lands owned by the government devoted to or suitable for
agriculture, which shall be acquired and distributed immediately upon the effectivity of this Act, with
the implementation to be completed within a period of not more than four (4) years;

Phase Two: All alienable and disposable public agricultural lands; all arable public agricultural lands
under agro-forest, pasture and agricultural leases already cultivated and planted to crops in
accordance with Section 6, Article XIII of the Constitution; all public agricultural lands which are to be
opened for new development and resettlement; and all private agricultural lands in excess of fifty
(50) hectares, insofar as the excess hectarage is concerned, to implement principally the rights of
farmers and regular farmworkers, who are the landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they
till, which shall be distributed immediately upon the effectivity of this Act, with the implementation to
be completed within a period of not more than four (4) years.

Phase Three: All other private agricultural lands commencing with large landholdings and
proceeding to medium and small landholdings under the following schedule:

(a) Landholdings above twenty-four (24) hectares up to fifty (50) hectares, to begin on the
fourth (4th) year from the effectivity of this Act and to be completed within three (3) years;
and

(b) Landholdings from the retention limit up to twenty-four (24) hectares, to begin on the sixth
(6th) year from the effectivity of this Act and to be completed within four (4) years; to
implement principally the right of farmers and regular farmworkers who are landless, to own
directly or collectively the lands they till.

The schedule of acquisition and redistribution of all agricultural lands covered by this program shall
be made in accordance with the above order of priority, which shall be provided in the implementing
rules to be prepared by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), taking into consideration
the following; the need to distribute land to the tillers at the earliest practicable time; the need to
enhance agricultural productivity; and the availability of funds and resources to implement and
support the program.

In any case, the PARC, upon recommendation by the Provincial Agrarian Reform Coordinating
Committee (PARCCOM), may declare certain provinces or region as priority land reform areas, in
which the acquisition and distribution of private agricultural lands therein may be implemented ahead
of the above schedules.

In effecting the transfer within these guidelines, priority must be given to lands that are tenanted.

The PARC shall establish guidelines to implement the above priorities and distribution scheme,
including the determination of who are qualified beneficiaries: provided, that an owner-tiller may be a
beneficiary of the land he does not own but is actually cultivating to the extent of the difference
between the area of the land he owns and the award ceiling of three (3) hectares.