Re-framing the Agrarian Question beyond Ideologies

James Putzel’s book, A Captive Land: the politics of agrarian reform in the Philippines and Temario Rivera’s book, Landlords & Capitalists: class, family, and state in Philippine manufacturing provide answers to two interrelated questions - is agrarian reform still a relevant requisite for Philippine development and why has the Philippines not been able to industrialize.

In a nutshell, the two authors suggest that the Philippines failed to develop and industrialize because we have not been able to develop a capitalist class. What we have is a landed class that has acquired political power and has wielded that power to have access to economic opportunities. It is not surprising then that those who own vast tracts of land are the same people who are lording it over in the manufacturing sector. The relative failure of the series of land and agrarian reform programs in the Philippines to substantially alter tenurial and socio-political relations in the countryside is largely due to the capture by the landed class of the machinery of the state to formulate and implement a genuine agrarian program.

The agrarian reform is tied with the industrialization program. A genuine agrarian program would have given the tenants land to till which will enable them to treat what is otherwise considered as rent on the land as an extra income which they could have used to consume goods. The landlords on the other hand would have both the capital (from the payments on their redistributed land) and the incentive to put the money in the manufacturing sector because the consumer base for manufactured products would have increased because the former tenants would now have enhanced purchasing power. Alas, this was not to be so. Aside from the agrarian program itself as being inadequate in the support facilities required to really help the farmer-owners increase their productivity and income, the rent seeking behavior of the landed class has disadvantaged the country’s industrialization program. Rather than pursuing industrialization which is capacitating the economy to manufacture machines and goods rather than being dependent on imports, the economic elite used their power to monopolize access to opportunities provided by what was initially called import substitution program and later on import-based but export oriented programs. The Philippines’ economic elite failed to develop a nationalist capitalist consciousness. Their main preoccupation is to pursue narrow class interests which are often tied with foreign vested interests. Thus, it is not surprising that we failed to industrialize. The cycle is sealed by a legitimizing ideology of neo-liberal economics’ belief in the theory of comparative advantage which relegated the Philippines to the exportation of agricultural products and raw materials and importation of manufactured goods. This strategy has caused chronic balance of trade deficit resulting to a host of adverse consequences to the economy.

The agrarian question cannot be discussed outside of the broader question of what to do with the rural economy and its attendant problems. Traditionally, in countries where there are labor surplus, widespread unemployment, high rate of population growth, and majority of people engaged in agriculture, agrarian reform is usually expected to play the roles of (1) redistributing income and wealth; (2) stimulating capital formation; and (3) improving agricultural productivity. Such reform policies are generally advocated as an effort to eradicate food insecurity and rural poverty. However, more often than not, such reforms suffer from political impossibility due mainly to its inherent paradox. The irony lies in the assumption that land confers power in agrarian systems; reform policy must then work through a system of power to overthrow its base (Herring l983: Ch 8). This is why conventional agrarian reform discourse emits an atmosphere of utter hopelessness that there ever is a political solution to the agrarian question.

After more than a decade from the publication of these two books, the agrarian question has resurfaced. Debates are ongoing whether the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Law has to be extended to “complete” the task. The context and condition for the agrarian question has changed and is changing. A re-thinking is appropriate.

“The traditional economic focus on intersection of landed rights, agriculture and poverty needs broadening to incorporate technological change enabled by the biological revolution and the importance of ecological systems that support both agriculture and survival strategies of the poor”. The traditional conceptualization of agrarian reform that sees that dominance of the landed class is too limiting and does not take into account the changes in the political condition that give rise to new opportunities to re-conceptualize agrarian reform. For one, there is a declining importance of agriculture. The rapid urbanization and the growth of the service sector are contributing to this phenomenon. New alternatives other than tenancy and farming are now available to landed elites. The emerging environmental consciousness is forcing forces resistant to agrarian reform to re-think their views about land stewardship. The new discoveries in the area of bio-technology allow for new forms of ownership to arise and expand options for the small farmers making reform more politically feasible. The interface of other reform agenda such as women empowerment is broadening base for redistribution of land and agrarian reform. As asymmetry in information is bridged, the agrarian question is evolving to be an issue of efficient land use, enhanced rural economy, and expanded property rights.