An enduring figure in Philippine progressive politics, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Horacio "Boy" Morales is certainly no stranger to the wider NGO community, whether here or abroad. Yet relatively few of his former NGO colleagues get to spend much time with him lately. To catch up with him these days requires a lot of effort and patience. Since making the leap from running an NGO to being an "NGO" - or "new government official" - Secretary Morales is very busy, to say the least. So it was an unexpected treat to sit down and talk with him over lunch last January 20, 1999 in his "new" office on the top floor of the DAR in Quezon City.
For those not familiar with his background, it is a little more than two decades ago that "BM" (as he is still often referred to in NGO circles) left the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) to join the CPP-dominated underground movement at the height of the Marcos dictatorship. He subsequently became a political detainee, and then after his release, moved on to head one of the largest development NGOs in the country, the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM).
Today Boy Morales is a presidential cabinet member, appointed last May 1998 by the newly-elected president Joseph Estrada to head what many consider to be one of the most difficult and least desirable positions in the upper echelons of central state power. Having been confirmed as DAR Secretary last September, minus the difficulties many had earlier anticipated, BM now faces perhaps the most serious challenge to date in his decades of work on behalf of the rural poor. That is to complete the current land reform program amid rhetorical attacks from sections of the broad social movement and stiff resistance from sections of the landed elite, and despite the limited government resources allocated for actual land distribution.
A better idea of just what the quantitative scope of this challenge is can be found in the speech the secretary delivered last January 21, 1999, during the launching of a new book about land reform, The Bibingka Strategy in Land Reform Implementation, written by Jun Borras and published by IPD.
According to Secretary Morales, "Some 3.4 million hectares of agricultural lands have still to be distributed to another two million farming families. The majority of these lands are public lands within the jurisdiction of the DENR. The private agricultural lands which the DAR is responsible is around 1.5 million hectares, of which the more difficult ones to move are the sugarlands of Regions VI and VII, and the coconut lands in Region V. The balance in land distribution under DAR's jurisdiction constitutes around 80 percent coconut lands, 15 percent sugar haciendas, and 5 percent commercial farms."
BM appears both daunted and undaunted by this challenge, if that is possible. In his opening statement at the book launching, he stated his intention in no unclear terms - "We said it before and we say it again - kahit mukhang napasubo na kami (roughly: "even if we ourselves seem unconvinced that we can do it"): We intend to complete land distribution in six years instead of ten. And we know this intention has grave implications, at least on our work and our blood pressure."
For BM, the challenge of implementing land reform in the Philippines is certainly not new, nor are its attendant difficulties unexpected. The country's agrarian reform process has been going on in one form or another for fifty years now, he reminds us. Looking back, he suggests that agrarian reform policy has evolved significantly since the Magsaysay resettlement program in the 1950s, noting it was only during the Aquino period that the current, relatively more comprehensive agrarian reform program known as CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) was instituted. All crops are included under CARP, unlike previous programs that were limited to just rice and corn lands.
Part of the challenge now facing BM is that there is so much left to do just to meet CARP's land distribution targets alone. Actually "moving" land has never been a strong point of state agrarian reform initiatives in the Philippines historically. As Secretary Morales points out, although agrarian reform has been around for the past fifty years, "most of the accomplishments in land reform in the Philippines happened in the past six years during the Ramos administration, under Secretary Ernie Garilao. I would say a substantial portion of land distribution happened during this time." At present, DAR has distributed approximately sixty percent (60%) of the total land targets of CARP.
To explain this relatively high degree of accomplishment under the previous administration, BM offers a three-part answer. "Partly I think it was because of the strong social pressure to try to achieve something in the area of social reform and agrarian reform. Partly because the government under President Ramos was more decided since he was not a big landowner. And partly because Ernie Garilao came from a civil society organization and had the support also of many NGOs and peoples organizations. So all these factors contributed I think to the achievements of the Ramos administration." As the person now responsible for completing CARP implementation, BM is appreciative of his predecessor's accomplishments. "We are fortunate to have reached this point," he continues. "I think to some extent we could say there is already a decisive achievement. We have already achieved more than half of what we should with the program, and it provides us a very good starting point towards completion of land distribution."
Still, the bottom-line implication for the Morales DAR is, as BM himself has acknowledged, is daunting. To make good on his stated intention, he says quite openly that "…the present DAR administration should surpass the 200,000-hectare yearly accomplishment of our good friend Ernie Garilao to complete land distribution in private estates within six years, or an aggregate annual output of 267,000 hectares."
If the Garilao DAR did relatively well in "moving" land under the circumstances, the Morales DAR must do even better. But that's not all. Despite the gains in land distribution made previously, BM emphasizes that half a century agrarian reform has not yet made a "decisive impact" on social relations in many parts of the country. "And so we still have a long way to go in terms of the target of social transformation for the countryside," he says quietly. "In a sense we have reached midway after fifty years. Now I don't think we can afford to wait another fifty years to complete the program." Amen.
Judging from his own past and his appreciation of the role of social pressure in raising the level of land distribution accomplishment under the previous administration, one should expect continuity between the Garilao DAR and the Morales DAR in terms of tolerance if not encouragement of such pressure in favor of implementation. Indeed, there is already evidence of this understanding on the part of the Morales DAR coming from different land struggles unfolding around the country over the past six months.
One good example of this understanding comes from Bondoc Peninsula in Quezon province. The way in which one of BM's closest colleagues and now DAR Undersecretary for Operations "Ding" Navarro spearheaded the DAR's response to and susbsequent constructive engagement with organized peasants on the 174-hectare Bryg. Catulin estate owned by the notorious Domingo Reyes was nothing less than impressive. In response to the organized demands by the tenant-farmers, who had been summarily evicted from the property by Reyes after petitioning for CARP coverage, the DAR agreed to initiate an inter-agency task force on CARP in Bondoc Peninsula last year.
Notably, this task force from the start opened a channel for the DAR to enlist the support of the police and the army to defend its personnel and the farmer-beneficiaries against possible attacks from landowners resistant to CARP. This one initiative alone, combined with persistent social pressure from below since then to make it work, has injected new life into the implementation process in a region described by BM himself as "one of the few vestiges of feudalistic order that we see in the country today."
Historically, CARP implementation in the Bondoc region has proceeded only glacially. This is partly because of the particularities of the land and hence the land problem from a legal perspective - many of the landholdings under dispute involve timberland still classified technically as lying within the forestal zone (public land). These lands are farmed by the rural poor migrant-settlers, but claimed by local elites. This fact alone has led to a lot of legal wrangling and bureaucratic confusion, thereby delaying the process of agrarian reform for decades now. But implementation has also been slowed by the clientelist authoritarian political order that prevails there. Reyes, for example, who is believed to control at least 10,000 hectares in the region (and perhaps thousands of rural poor families' lives), is well-known for his preference for using more "sticks" than "carrots" to keep his tenants in line.
Talking in a very even, almost methodical tone, BM's reflections about the way his agency has been handling the case strike one as understating the degree of innovation involved. He says, "In the case of Bondoc, the efforts of the DAR I think should be intensified in working with the local governments. Much of the delay involves delays in processing disputes in the judiciary, both at the PARAD level of DAR and in the courts outside of DAR. Because many events happen and they always run to the courts to settle their disputes. And this delays the whole process. In fact, this is the reason why we went into the area only last year, because it was only settled last year. [The court case] had been pending for many years."
"Now once you speed up the processing of these disputes, the next question is how do you get the support of the whole government machinery to install the farmers and support the program. And again in the case of Bondoc we had to request the support of the law enforcement agencies so that they can protect the farmers. And right now they are planting and managing their land guarded by these law enforcement agencies."
In thinking about what made the support from law enforcement agencies possible in the first place, BM's answer remains somewhat vague. He says, "I think more than other elements, it's the question of political will - showing that you mean to implement the program, that you are really decided to go ahead and really take the necessary steps. And when this was seen by the other agencies and we made the request to the law enforcement agencies, then they came in." Sounds plausible, but still one wonders just how the DAR was able to show that they meant business, and just why the other agencies, especially the police and the military - whose posture toward agrarian reform historically has rarely been one of protectors of the peasantry -- were ultimately convinced.
But that's another story. Or is it? According to BM, DAR has had to put effort into this new relationship with law enforcement in the Bondoc case to deepen and strengthen what could be called a "pro-reform alliance" within the state. "So then the law enforcement agencies came in. But then we saw that one of things we needed to also was to orient people from the law enforcement agencies. So we had a seminar in Quezon for the armed forces personnel and the national police on agrarian reform. Explaining to them what we are doing, what are our goals and objectives, and where we think they can help. And I think that was very useful because it gave an orientation to all the top military commanders in the area. So now we can rely on their support. So that's the kind of building support we think is necessary. This really has to go on, this process of dialogue, information, education. Its really what this program is all about."
Thinking in longer historical terms, one can probably safely say though that the actions of the DAR in the Bondoc case and especially their success in recruiting law enforcement agencies to the side of effective agrarian reform implementation was a pathbreaking move on the part of the new secretary. Slow to acknowledge this, BM finally lets loose an irrepressible giggle of sorts and somewhat shyly admits, "Yes, this was a first time for us…." Another understatement, to say the least.
Taking their recent experience with law enforcement agencies elsewhere, BM says that they are planning to undertake CARP information and education seminars for both the judiciary and the media, which he believes are other key institutions where it is both necessary and possible to make changes in favor of speeding up the program. The reason is simple, according to BM. He points out that the agrarian reform law is complicated and hard to understand. "It takes a little explaining to overcome misconceptions." He suggests that such activities are also preemptive in the sense that they can help to counter the efforts of resistant landowners to use either local police or courts or media for private gain, in this case to evade the law.
Incidentally, one detects a kind of life thread here in the new DAR secretary's emphasis on information and education around CARP. BM actually started out his first time in government as a special assistant to the secretary of education years ago, when that department was headed by Carlos P. Romulo.
The Bondoc case certainly represents one extreme in terms of the lengths to which a single landowner is willing to go to avoid reform. But what about landowners whose resistance to land reform is based more on the issue of valuation, or how much they will be compensated for giving up their land for the program? Here, we are also likely to see more continuity than change under the Morales DAR. "The way you work with the landowners I think is a continuing process of really dialoguing with them, then exploring ways to work together," says BM.
"I think to some extent the Garilao group had started these kinds of discussions with them, so there were some landowners who willingly gave up their lands. But there are others who still, up to now continue to resist the implementation of the program. Maraming (many) factors involved, and I think in a sense the program is now facing a stage where there has to be a higher level of consensus on what to expect from the program and how to support the program, among the different actors of society. Because if we just depend on the current state of debate and current state of support, it is not strong enough to enable us to complete the program faster. We need to heighten the level of unity."
What does "heightening the level of unity" mean in the context of land reform? "On the land distribution side, because of the length of time it [is taking] to implement the program, we find ourselves in a situation where some of the other stakeholders in the program have been raising issues about non-compliance, violations of the farmers, failure of the program to provide the necessary income and productivity for the farmers. This is very much related to the time it takes to complete because the longer you take to complete the program, the more ambiguities are highlighted. And then [the program's opponents] keep on citing minor, anecdotal events to conclude that the program has all kinds of weaknesses. That's why I think at this point, what we need is to confront all these concerns and issues being raised by specific, for example, landowning groups."
Relative to this delicate issue of working out the ambiguities of implementation, in other venues BM has stated that the current DAR will adopt "creative and realistic approaches that recognize the different characteristics of private landholdings based on crops, agronomic conditions, geo-economic locations and types of landowners." More specifically, he is referring to what is quickly becoming the newest innovation at the level of overall policymaking within DAR - a "differentiated, disaggregated and calibrated approach" to land reform. If the Garilao DAR distinguished itself by adopting a "bibingka strategy" (meaning, pursuit of positive engagements between pro-reformists within the state and pro-reformists in society in favor of land reform), the Morales DAR appears poised to make its mark on the history of land reform in the Philippines with this new "differentiated, disaggregated and calibrated" approach.
"Right now," he explains further, "we are doing this with the commercial farm owners, mainly in banana, and then the next group would be the sugar landowners, which is one of the biggest that has not been covered by the program." According to the secretary, "this" means sitting down with landowners, having dialogues with them, exploring all their issues and concerns, and working out a scheme, he says, "to come up with special approaches still within the framework of CARP. Without going beyond CARP. So this is one of the biggest challenges we face today - trying to look at the different components of the program in a segregated way so that we have our own special strategies for the different sectors."
"But on a broader framework," BM continues, "we need to win the support of the broader public," although as he mentions, previous SWS surveys always show majority public support for completion of the program. BM believes that such consistent public support for the program is related to the issue of transformation of the agricultural sector. "For the past twelve years the government has neglected agriculture," he asserts. "The level of investments has been very low, minimal. You cannot expect the situation of the beneficiaries to improve in that kind of a situation."
Because of the Estrada administration's commitment to food security and agricultural development, says BM, the prospects for program beneficiary development (or "PBD") now are brighter. "There will be a higher level of investments for agriculture. But still we need higher public support to realize this shift from the old strategy of development inclined towards industrialization, to this thrust of more support for agriculture. In that way we can get more public investments in this area. Our other target is to get more private investors, because we need both public and private to effect this level of transformation we want to see in the rural areas. Now for that we need a massive information communication work in all the sectors, so that we can get other sectors of society to support the program in partnership with the government."
In the final analysis, BM believes that the capacity of the state to finish CARP implementation by itself is very limited, hence the need for partnerships between different sectors. "Our assumption is government by itself cannot implement the program successfully. It has a very limited resource, very limited machinery. So we need the support of peoples organizations, NGOs, other civil society organizations. We need the different government agencies as well. And we also need the support of business, of corporations. It is only by getting them all together for the program, that we can generate the resources necessary to effect this modernization."
In particular, BM explains, "what we have been trying to do is promote a spirit of "civic entrepreneurship" among local leaders, composed of NGOs and then local government leaders and business leaders, to work together in a particular community and come up with a strategic vision to develop these communities. We are now beginning to enter into agreements with some of these corporations."
"For example, in Bulacan we agreed to develop a large area for a coffee plantation and Nestle-Philippines came in on a joint venture with the cooperative in that area. They provide the technology of culturing the plant varieties, of cloning and providing these to the farmers so it takes a shorter time to grow. And there's a marketing contract. After that, all the farmers' produce will be bought by Nestle. This is what we are encouraging now in different parts of the country. We talk with some of these corporations to see if they are interested in developing an area, we invite them to come in, they bring in their investments and technology, and we get the farmers' organizations to work with them in the direction of eventually transferring the technology to the farmers and eventually enabling the farmers to take over."
"This is what we call the "corporative" -- the merging of the coop and the corporation. That is the scheme we are promoting now." The idea is to merge the equity-based quality of cooperatives and the efficiency of corporations, and in the process create serious socioeconomic development opportunities for program beneficiaries, while also creating convincing incentives for landowners to participate in the program.
Indeed, while "corporatives" may sound more like a strategy for development after land distribution, BM makes it clear that they are a key part of his strategy for achieving more gains in land distribution. "By going into this, we encourage a form of distribution that transfers your strategy from compulsory acquisition to direct payment scheme. Because of the joint venture, the farmers earn more out of their share of the corporation to be able to pay the landowner. The landowner also gets a better price for the land, rather than the other alternative approaches where the government values the land usually at a different level. And of course, they know they are automatically getting paid from the earnings. So its both a strategy for land distribution and PBD." Under the Morales DAR, therefore, expect public and private investors to become a much more integral part of whatever transformations in agriculture may be in the offing via CARP.
In terms of support for the program coming from beyond the Philippines? Perhaps its best to just let BM's message to be conveyed in his own words. "We have been fortunate in DAR. I don't know when it started, with Garilao or before, but when we came into DAR it had the support of about ten partner foreign donors. Among the most pioneering of these were the Belgian government and the Dutch government. They were the ones which started very early to support the program. In addition to their own bilateral ODA, they also support through the European Union. The EU Program on Agrarian Reform, I understand is one of the biggest programs of the EU, among all their programs all over the world. And I think the Dutch government contributed heavily to that also."
"The foreign support that we have received has been very important. Not only terms of dollars or ecru, but in terms of the political support it has provided the program, because when we saw the donors coming in and supporting the program heavily, I think this is a political statement. That they subscribe to the objectives of the program, so you cannot ignore land reform anymore and derail it from the national agenda because of this strong political support. And I think that has been the most important contribution of the European governments, and the Dutch government in particular."
"So we hope that this is not discontinued at this point in time, because that would reflect a kind of negative statement on the program. Unfortunately, I heard that the Dutch government is considering pulling out its support from the Philippines for one reason or the other. If that happens, that may affect the level of support we are getting for the program, and as I said its not only the level of funds, but the endorsement we get from these foreign funders that is important to us."
Finally, it seems fitting to end the interview with the secretary's current reflections about what its like to now inside the "commanding heights" of government again, after having been out for a full twenty years. Six months into his term, BM admits there are a lot of adjustments to be made because there are some big differences between NGO work and GO work.
NGOs are a rich venue for unleashing creativity in the conceptualization of programs and for taking clear advocacy positions, and he believes that the role of NGOs is precisely as "creative developers of ideas and programs and as articulators of people's agenda." In.contrast, being a government official is more about public responsibility. "On a day to day basis you have to respond to issues and demands in a swift manner." Every working day at the DAR, different groups of farmers from all over the country seek an audience with him on various concerns. "Some of them," he explains with a smile, "don't go home afterward. Many of them camp-out in front. And you have to deal with all these situations." Time is a luxury you don't have as a government official, according to BM. "You don't have time to sit down and really think through all these things. You have to come up with decisions."
With this seeming daunting task, BM emphasized that the only way one can be effective is to have a good team of people around to help you with decisions and moves as they come up. A sturdy support system is essential. "On the other hand, " he continues, "while you have this very heavy burden and responsibility, you also have a ready-made mechanism and structure to implement your decisions. Once you are installed in a government position, there's already a bureaucracy that when you make orders and instructions, its followed. That's really part of the system," he says with just a bit of surprise in his voice. "Unlike in NGO work where you have to do a lot of persuading and networking and negotiation."
And so what does the future hold for BM? Well, the secretary apparently feels no need to chart his future course in either one direction or the other at this point. "Maybe especially in my case, where I look at my life as a cycle in working in the government before, then working with the people directly, its come full circle. Maybe I'll give it a few years and then see what happens after that. See what is better for myself in terms of my own creativity." It will certainly be interesting to see.