Securing land rights of the rural poor through legal empowerment in the Philippines
THE TASK FORCE MAPALAD EXPERIENCE

I.      Background

The Task Force Mapalad, Inc. (TFM) is a national federation of farmers, farm workers and individual advocates working for genuine access to land and rural development in the Philippines.

Its mission is to improve the lives of the rural poor by supporting their initiatives to gain access to land, water and other natural resources essential in attaining a humane and dignified life.

TFM assists farmer organizations through grassroots organizing, campaigns for land tenure and productivity improvement, alliance work, advocacy, capacity building and research.

TFM was born in September 1999 in the Negros Occidental province at the heart of central Philippines. The Negros haciendas (sugar estates) are strategic in the work for asset reform in the Philippines since it is here where ownership and control of lands still remain in the hands of few families while many still remain poor and hungry.

Successful land rights campaigns in Negros Occidental from 1999 to 2007 enabled TFM to expand work to 512 agricultural estates nationwide. Beginning from 500 farm worker members from 16 sugar hacienda in Negros Occidental in 1999, TFM now has 20,000 members in 10 provinces -- Cagayan Valley, Nueva Ecija, Batangas, Oriental Mindoro and Occidental Mindoro in northern Philippines; Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and Iloilo in central Philippines; and Bukidnon and Davao Oriental in southern Philippines.

TFM is acknowledged in the Philippine agrarian reform community for its original approach of integrating land tenure improvement (LTI) and productivity development to fight rural poverty and the problems that come with it. These problems are landowner resistance and difficulty of the Philippine government to strictly enforce land reform in properties of influential landowners who are usually patrons or relatives of politicians.

TFM uses the phrase ‘fire from below’ as its organizational mantra. The farmers themselves are at the forefront of local and national mobilizations for land rights and rural development. They lead in dialogues, community mobilizations, media events and alliance work.

TFM engages both government and non-government institutions to achieve policy reforms. It holds dialogues with government agencies such as the Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Agriculture, Land Bank of the Philippines, Commission on Human Rights and the executive offices of the President of the Philippines. It cooperates with the judicial and legislative members of the government towards experience-based policies.

TFM participates in different national coalitions such as Kilos AR (Kilusan para sa Pagsusulong ng Repormang Agraryo, or the National Movement to Advance Agrarian

Reform) and the Peoples’ Campaign for Agrarian Reform Network (AR Now!). It also works with the Negros-based Sugar Workers’ Alliance in Negros (SWAN), which had previously supported TFM-led initiatives to resolve agrarian-related violence in the Negros sugar estates.

TFM works with non-government institutions such as the KAISAHAN, SALIGAN and BALAOD for policy reforms on jurisdiction of agrarian matters and other legal policy questions in agrarian reform implementation. It also works with peasant-led formations such as UNORKA, PKSK and PhilNet to fast track land reform implementation in agrarian hotspots and to revamp DAR leadership. It has also significantly participated in the combined initiatives of the peasant formations, Catholic Church and other faith-based groups and progressive members of the Philippine Congress to lobby for the extension of the Philippine agrarian reform program beyond 2008.

TFM’s experience-based advocacy resulted in several landmark policies and declarations such as the Supreme Court rule that resolves issue on jurisdiction over agrarian-related matters and the statement from the Negros Catholic bishops supporting farmers’ rights to their lands.

Its advocacy also spurred convergence among officials from the executive, legislative and judicial branches to formulate policies ensuring farmers’ installation and protection in their own lands.

In the past years, TFM’s campaigns on land tenure have been repeatedly referred to by both Philippine government and the media as the litmus test to the State’s political will to uphold the law in favor of the rural poor.

II.      Activities in promoting access to justice and institutions for securing land rights for the rural poor

TFM has played roles in promoting access to justice and institutions for securing land rights for the rural poor. In fact, legal reform advocacy and paralegal development of the rural poor are not isolated but are treated as integral components of the Land Tenure Improvement or LTI Program of TFM.

Among the TFM interventions that help capacitate farmers to use the potency of the law to secure rural poor’s land rights are:

1.      Training on LTI campaigns and media advocacy. The rural poor undergo training to enhance their skills, knowledge and attitudes in negotiation and mediation with government and non-government organizations for support to their claim to their lands.

2.      Paralegal training. These provide the rural poor the basic tools in addressing the legal problems they confront in relation to their land claims. The framework is to understand the law and to use it creatively to address land security problems. Metalegal skills – or skills which do not strictly involve the law but are used to emphasize the injustice of existing rules (source: Public Law Interest Institute http://www.pili.org/en/content/view/159/26/) -- and other remedies, which do not make a simplistic legal analysis of the problem, are also provided to farmer paralegals.

3.      Regular paralegal clinics. These serve as regular tactics sessions for the farmer paralegals to monitor and evaluate responses to the land tenure problems they address.

4.      Community legal education. Farmer paralegals regularly conduct education sessions with the general membership of farmer organizations and other community folk to enhance their capacities in addressing land tenure problems and to enable them to analyze their cases.

5.      Litigation support. Although farmer paralegals are taught with basic legal skills in research, documentation and evidence gathering, direct legal assistance is still usually needed to assist farmers in responding to actual cases. This intervention is necessary as landowners resisting land reform often use the courts to impede the land reform or simply to harass farmers.

6.      Building municipal federations of peoples’ organizations. Hacienda or estate-based organizations are federated in each municipality. This is a means to intensify the role of peoples’ organizations in sustaining gains in agrarian reform and securing economic development of farmer beneficiaries.

7.      Community mobilizations for LTI. Farmers launch community mobilizations at the local and national levels along each step of the agrarian reform process. These allow farmers themselves to engage government agencies to resolve bottlenecks in their land claims and to build linkages with institutions and influential actors from different sectors for potential sources of support in advocacy, lobbying and negotiation.

8.      Policy and media advocacy. Farmers hold dialogues with government and non-government organizations to harness support for policy reforms. Their skills in engaging with the media are also developed to bring out their stories on land struggle to public attention and to contribute in the resolution of land reform cases.

Goals of these interventions

Through these activities, TFM aims to increase capacities and empower the rural poor to use existing laws and decrees of the land to pressure the State to adhere to its obligation in recognizing and upholding the rural poor’s rights to social justice and development. With proper know-how of the law and paralegal skills, farmers’ groups are able to engage government institutions and civil society to support their initiatives for agrarian reform and rural development.

Activities

The activities that TFM had already realized were training and development of farmer-paralegals; paralegal clinics and consultations with lawyers and paralegals on specific land reform and land reform-related cases; litigation of agrarian-related cases (or cases which former landowners filed against farmers with the intent to discourage farmers from pursuing their land claims; campaigns for policy reforms; education sessions and multisectoral conferences on legal trends and developments affecting land rights; community mobilization for policy reforms; dialogue with the Supreme Court, Department of Agrarian Reform and concerned government institutions to put reforms in the administration of land reform laws; filing of administrative complaints against government officials neglecting their duty on land reform and social justice; and continuous legal education program for TFM campaign specialists, peasant community organizers, and local volunteers.

How these activities were carried out

The activities were carried out through close collaboration among the TFM LTI team (composed of the campaign specialists, community organizers and local volunteers), TFM peasant groups, lawyers who are retained on a regular basis to handle the farmers’ cases, and selected institutions specializing in alternative legal services, legal reforms and paralegal development.

Activities are designed under a periodic campaign (i.e. six-month campaign plan) that is largely based on the current and emerging trends in agrarian reform and rural development at the national and provincial levels.

A case in point was the TFM campaign to resolve conflict of jurisdiction of agrarian-related cases which culminated in 2004, following the escalating incidents of court-issued injunctions or restraining orders in private agricultural lands in favor of former landowners resisting the land reform program.

Actors involved

Results

  III.      LESSONS LEARNED

1.      Combining legal empowerment with genuine community organizing is a potent tool to win struggles for the land rights of the rural poor. Legal empowerment is only one part of a more integrated approach to enhancing capacities of farmer communities to protect and uphold their land rights. As they understand and acquire skills and knowledge on legal issues affecting them, farmers should continue to be at the forefront of activities to create social pressure, such as community mobilizations, dialogues and alliances with different organizations for agrarian reform and rural development.

2.      Legal and moral legitimacy of the farmers’ claims results in successful campaigns for land rights even in the most contentious properties. Landowners resisting the Philippines’ land reform program usually use legal maneuvers to impede farmers’ claims. But these stand weak as long as the rural poor adhere to the rule of law and legal processes and their right to claims. In the end, the State has the obligation to uphold the legal and moral rights of the rural poor to their lands.

  IV.      RECOMMENDATIONS

1.      Integrate legal education and empowerment interventions in the processes of community organizing and mobilization.

2.      Use positive provisions of the law to advance the rural poor’s right to land and development.

3.      Document community-based experiences on land tenure improvement with legal education as an integral component.

4.      Pursue comprehensive legal education which would enable the rural poor to identify their problems related to land rights and to execute actions which would resolve bottlenecks in their claims.

5.      Reach out to more influentials, key government and non-government organizations to achieve critical legal reforms in the land rights movement in the Philippines.