Study Of Civil Society Organizations’ Participation In The Agrarian Reform Process Of The Philippines,1986-1998

The People Power Revolution in 1986 made a difference on the Philippines due to widely people’s participation and remarkable politic achievements. After the revolution, the Aquino Government 1986-1992) and the Ramos Government(1992-1998) carried out the democratic politic construction of the Philippines, thus providing CSOs with the basis of legitimacy and the opportunity of cooperation. The Constitution of 1987 approved and supported the CSOs’participation, the Corporation Code of 1980 organized and administrated CSOs, the Tax Law of 1997 provided more tax deduction and exemption for CSOs, and the national state as well as the local governments provided more opportunities for the participation of CSOs. On these loose social conditions in the Philippines, CSOs has achieved a quantity increase vertically and network joint expansion horizontally.The fast-developing effect of CSOs in the agrarian reform can’t be ignored, which can be traced back to the agrarian reform process before 1986. The agrarian reform was the topic that the colonial government and the government of the Republic had to face before 1986. And the people’s participation is dominant keeping the agrarian reform issues heated discussion. Besides some small-scale peasant uprisings among the forces participating in the agrarian reform, communist forces and religious forces hold the dominant position, they promoted farmers’ rebellions and the construction of CSOs directly or indirectly. After 1986, CSOs become the principal participators of the agrarian reform due to the relatively loose social environment, the opportunities provided by Philippine governments and the severe situation of agrarian reform.This paper intention to classify the CSOs’participation in the agrarian reform pr-ocess in the end of the 20th century into two types based on their attitudes towards the government. One type includes some organizations who strongly refuse to cooperate with the government, such as KMP and CPAR, while the other type chose to coopera-te, such as FFF. NFSW, CARRD and PhilDHRRA. In addition, the former type urged the government to enact a agrarian reform act that is truly in the public interest. While the latter accept the Governmental "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Act of 1988" a-nd actively participated in the implementation of the act. To learn more about the spe-cific activities of CSOs’ participation in the agrarian reform, this paper selects two ty-pical organizations, including the Congress for People’s Agrarian Reform (CPAR) and The Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA), to elaborate their activities. CPAR actively promoted the government to enact a agrarian reform law from the interest of people. And they didn’t stop even after the "Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law" of 1988 was promulgated. PhilDH-RRA has been committed in promoting the spread and the practice of the concept of tripartite cooperation partnership between the PO-NGO-GO in rural areas.Due to the case studies of KMP, CARRD, CPAR and Phil-DHRRA, the last cha-pter of this paper makes a conclusion that CSOs participation form mostly are pressu-re-type movements, lobbying initiatives, awareness raising act-ivities, project partici-pants, organization and coalition-building approach. But the results of these CSOs’ participation are disappointed. Although they raised people’s con-science of agrarian reform and maintained the agrarian reform issues within the government’ schedule, they did not achieve their prospect targets. And the Philippine government did not pr-omote the enactment of a genuine agrarian reform act. It didn’t implement the "Com-prehensive Agrarian Reform Act" well. In a word, the participation of CSOs didn’t m-ake a big difference own to their insufficient organizational skills, the defects of social participatory mechanisms and the suppression from vested interests.