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The paper aims to understand the concept of “kadagaan” in the context of Ilocano migration to the town of Ilagan, Isabela in 1881 when they were recruited by Tabacalera administrators to work in the tobacco plantations of Hacienda Sta. Isabel and San Antonio. Despite experiencing harsh conditions, the tenants held on to the promise that the lands would be given to them on 1981 - Tabacalera’s 100th year in the Philippines. The narrative of promise was passed on from generation to generation but was not fulfilled. In 1980, instead of distributing the lands to the tenants, Tabacalera sold the haciendas to ANCA corporation owned by Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. In the face of losing what they and their ancestors worked for for a century, the farmers would realize the potential of “kadagaan” in fighting for land and labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite the vast research on contract farming by agrarian scholars, little is known about interactions between biological risks and the social–political effects of contracts. This study analysed contract farming arrangements in the export banana industry in the Philippines amidst an expanding epidemic of Panama disease. We developed a political ecology of risk approach to investigate how ideas about technological and biological risks are influenced by contractual arrangements, and we borrowed from Cultural Theory the insight that risk and blame are connected concepts, always political, and disadvantage marginalized groups through disproportionate risk burdens. Data collection involved the study of contracts, interviews with decision‐makers, and focus group discussions with agrarian cooperatives. The views of both large corporations as well as organized smallholders were recorded. We found that the former contractually compel the latter to bear the burden of the disease, while blaming them for its spread. Risk decisions were embedded in the dynamics of agrarian social relationships, and economic and political arrangements between actors influenced possibilities and limitations for disease control. We argue that the contractual stipulations, in concert with blaming processes, create a discursive environment that both allow inequitable relations to remain unquestioned, and constrain possibilities for control of Panama disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates how natural disasters can rearrange arenas of contestation over land use, ownership and titling. It analyses how state agents, organized civil society, communities and powerful business groups in three cases in rural Philippines dealt with the challenges and opportunities for agrarian reform after being hit by typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Understanding this connection between agrarian reform and disasters will become increasingly important to address the vulnerabilities of the marginalized in the context of climate change and related rise in disasters. An actor-oriented perspective and a case study method was used to unravel how specific communities engage with processes of agrarian reform after a disaster and how a crisis can change dynamics between actors from above and below in agrarian reform processes. This is needed since the people's perspective on these processes is often missing and knowledge on the everyday experiences of social change is limited. The cases show that disasters are a window of opportunity to reverse or accelerate complicated agrarian reform processes: by restructuring dynamics between actors from below and above in existing, sometimes stagnated agrarian reform processes, by revealing political dynamics that were invisible before or by creating new possibilities to mobilize actors from above and below to claim access to land. • Natural disasters rearrange arenas of contestation over land use, ownership and titling. • Changing dynamics between actors from above and below. • Changes created both challenges and opportunities for the rural poor to claim access to their lands. • Using an actor-oriented perspective shows how communities engage with processes of agrarian reform after a disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philippine agrarian reform involves compulsory purchase of private farmlands. Several landowners were suspected of either using land use conversions (LUCs) to pre-empt expropriation, or choosing market-led agrarian reform (MLAR) options to retain effective control of their farmland. However, there has been no statistically-tested empirical evidence to support anecdotal claims that these were adopted by landowners to protect private property rights. Before testing whether LUCs have been used solely to avoid land redistribution, this article provides a theoretical framework that treats the reform as a price intervention policy since compensation is usually below market value. This article's novelty lies in its application of Cheung's theory of price control to explain how land redistribution could change the use of productive asset through LUC, or the contractual arrangement of involved parties through MLAR. Afterwards, this study employs feasible generalized least squares regression, where the effect of compulsory land redistribution on MLAR and LUC are tested to investigate the hypothesis that LUC was largely induced by agrarian reform. The results show that some LUC and MLAR were induced by the risk of expropriation, although in the case of former only when the risk of expropriation is high. Based on Cheung's theory of price control, the response choice should depend on the transaction costs associated with each of the alternatives. The theoretical framework suggests that some landowners may have preferred MLAR first before considering LUC, which is posited as one reason why the proportion of expropriation-induced LUC may not have been as high as some might like to claim. • Theory of price control applied to response of landowner to a risk of expropriation. • Empirical study on how agrarian reform may affect land use change in Philippines. • Land use conversion was partly induced by high risk of compulsory acquisition. • But evidence that it was a reasonable market response was also found. • Preference for market-led redistribution may have tempered reform-induced LUC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores institutional mechanisms that might be required to boost both organic agriculture and rural development in the Philippines. Special attention is paid to community-based organic agriculture as a pathway to rural development. The Philippines has two decades of experience of community-based natural resource management. Unlike public natural resources such as forests, watersheds or fisheries, however, the community-based organic agriculture programme is intended to deal with the private property regime. Thus, if the programme is to be successful, agrarian land reform must continue. Integrated rice-duck farming is among the suitable and viable options for organic agriculture, given that rice is a major agricultural crop and duck meat is popular in the Philippines. Area-based organic food certification systems need to be formulated and a government–farmers partnership should be forged to facilitate farmers’ access to domestic and international organic food markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos (1972–86), Filipino technocrats played a major role in conceptualising and implementing development programmes, one of which was agrarian reform – billed as the “cornerstone” of a “New Society.” But for all its vaunted expertise, the Philippine technocracy failed to assure the success of land reform and may have even contributed to its dearth of accomplishment after 14 years of lacklustre implementation. This failure can be traced to the application of a development paradigm pursued by Marcos and the technocrats with its inherent bias for elite big business concerns that clashed with the distributive justice and equity-based principles behind agrarian reform. Leading technocrats like Cesar Virata, Prime Minister and concurrent Finance Minister as well as Chairman of the Land Bank of the Philippines, the agrarian programme’s main financing institution, originally came from the academe but honed their skills in the corporate world, from where their mindsets became inextricably mired. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article tests the relationships among formalised property rights, land tenure contracts and productive efficiency in farming. Using four rounds of panel data from 230 rice farms in the Philippines, we measure the effects of land tenure arrangements on farm efficiency using a stochastic production frontier model. We test for the allocative efficiency of observed land rental markets. We also test how land tenure security affects farmers' investment decisions. Results suggest that, despite the presence of formalised titles, the rental market remains inefficient at allocating land. In contrast, the unformalised tenure contracts used by farmers appear to provide tenure security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Agrarian reform has been a key theme on the development agenda of many countries in the Global South for decades. Whilst such interventions are often pursued for political goals and in the interests of empowerment, there is often a mismatch between these goals and the actual outcomes achieved. Within this context, this study investigates the impacts of agrarian reform in Del Rosario, a former coconut hacienda in the Philippines. This is done in an attempt to explore whether agrarian reform has facilitated the creation of sustainable livelihoods among its beneficiaries, in particular, and in their agrarian reform community, in general. The impacts of reform are examined in relation to four themes – economic, social, demographic and environmental. Overall, the study concludes that agrarian reform has not brought about sustainable livelihoods in the former coconut hacienda. People''s livelihoods, especially those derived from copra farming, remain at a subsistence level. At most, at an economic level agrarian reform has brought about improved access to land among its beneficiaries. Nevertheless, it has empowered the farmers by giving them greater freedom and has increased their sense of well-being, as well as enabling them to improve their families’ life prospects and strengthen social capital. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An introduction is presented in which the issue editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the impact of globalization on the transnationalization of political mobilization, the association of Philippine Catholic Bishops in the development of Catholicism in the country, and the ecological activism of Greenpeace Philippines.

This paper examines notions of deviance by looking at the strategy of direct action employed by Greenpeace Philippines in its environmental activism. The environmental movement is often considered a more peaceful social movement. However, in the West, where direct actions by radical ecological grassroots movements are sometimes violent, environmental activism has come to be synonymous with eco- terrorism. While the methods employed by Greenpeace are always nonviolent, this deviant identification is nevertheless retained. Such a stigma is prevalent mainly in North America and Western Europe, but has not been as readily extended to Greenpeace Philippines. This paper shows how the organization has actually been repeatedly forgiven for its deviant direct actions, as evinced, for instance, by the rarity of legal action filed against Green Peace Philippines and its activists. This research in progress puts forward a more positive understanding of deviance - as an expression of agency and a concrete manifestation of love for nature. As a strategy, deviance has been crucial to the transformative character of Greenpeace as an organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007, farmers from Sumilao in the Mindanao province of Bukidnon walked 1700 km from their homes to the capital, Manila, in an attempt to win back the 144 hectares of land that should have been distributed to them via the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Not only were they successful, but their victory was perceived as a landmark event by the people in the agrarian reform movement. The Sumilao Walk affected how later campaigns were organized, in particular the likewise successful 2009 national CARPER (CARP Extension with Reforms) campaign. This study aims at understanding the processes behind the mobilization strategies that formed the basis of an ultimately successful campaign. Collective action frame theory constitutes the theoretical framework. The Sumilao farmers' campaign conclusively led to two important outcomes. It strengthened horizontal relationships in civil society between agrarian reform SMOs and increased cooperation between the agrarian reform movement and the Catholic Church, facilitated by a shared non-violence methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]