Code of Agrarian Reform

Also known as: R.A. No. 6389 — its docket styling · The Code of Agrarian Reforms of the Philippines — the amended Section 1's exact short title · The Code of Agrarian Reforms — PD 27's styling in its transferability clause · The 1971 agrarian code — the shorthand distinguishing it from the 1963 Code

Government

Definition

The Code of Agrarian Reform is Republic Act No. 6389, approved September 10, 1971 — the statute that amended Republic Act No. 3844, the Agricultural Land Reform Code of 1963, and restyled it under an amended Section 1 as the “Code of Agrarian Reforms of the Philippines.” (LawPhil — RA 6389) Its long title is prosaic — “An Act Amending Republic Act Numbered Thirty-Eight Hundred and Forty-Four, as Amended, Otherwise Known as the Agricultural Land Reform Code, and for Other Purposes” — but its reorganization was structural: a rewritten Section 49 created the Department of Agrarian Reform, “directly under the control and supervision of the President,” headed by a Secretary appointed with the consent of the Commission on Appointments; Section 12 abolished the Land Authority; and Section 11 abolished the Land Reform Project Administration “and its governing body, the National Land Reform Council,” transferring their functions, appropriations, records, equipment, and personnel to the new Department, with Section 37 redirecting every statutory reference to the Department. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

The statute’s tenant machinery was its sharpest break with 1963. The original Code had abolished share tenancy on a switch: conversion proceeded region by region only when the National Land Reform Council proclaimed the leasehold machinery operating there; RA 6389 amended Section 4 to declare share tenancy “contrary to public policy” and provide that it “shall be automatically converted to agricultural leasehold” — no proclamation, no waiting — while an amended Section 34 capped lease rental at twenty-five percent of the average normal harvest less deductions, and Section 34-A credited rentals paid as amortization payments on the land. (LawPhil — RA 6389, LawPhil — RA 3844) The Code also strengthened the adjudicative side — an amended Section 155 gave the Court of Agrarian Relations “all the powers and prerogatives inherent in or belonging to the Court of First Instance,” and Section 31 kept the Office of the Agrarian Counsel to represent tenants and lessees. (LawPhil — RA 6389) This is the statute this wiki’s entries on the National Land Reform Council, the Land Authority, Republic Act No. 3844, and Presidential Decree No. 27 point to: PD 27 itself, a year later, would govern the transfer of emancipated rice-and-corn lands “in accordance with the provisions of this Decree, the Code of Agrarian Reforms and other existing laws and regulations.” (LawPhil — PD 27)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article (existence check verified this session); the Code is covered within Land reform in the Philippines
Wikidata	N/A — no item located this session (search verified)
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A (LOC authorities unreachable this session)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A — the concept “agrarian reform” (c_196) names the program, not the statute
Google Scholar	Republic Act 6389 Code of Agrarian Reforms of the Philippines September 10 1971 Department of Agrarian Reform automatic leasehold conversion Land Authority abolition National Land Reform Council agrarian counsel rental 25 percent
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

R.A. No. 6389 — its docket styling
The Code of Agrarian Reforms of the Philippines — the amended Section 1’s exact short title
The Code of Agrarian Reforms — PD 27’s styling in its transferability clause
The 1971 agrarian code — the shorthand distinguishing it from the 1963 Code

Examples and Analogies

A renovation, not a demolition: RA 6389 did not repeal the 1963 Code; it amended it section by section and hung a new name on the whole — a house that kept its foundation and rooms but gained a new facade and a landlord with cabinet rank. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Three agencies into one department: the Land Authority, the Land Reform Project Administration, and the National Land Reform Council — the acquisition arm, the operating arm, and the timing council of 1963 — were dissolved forward into the Department of Agrarian Reform, which inherited their functions, funds, records, and personnel intact. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
The proclamation retired: in 1963 a tenant’s conversion to leasehold waited on the Council’s triple-published proclamation that his region’s machinery was running; in 1971 the conversion became automatic by operation of the amended Section 4 — the clock the 1963 text set was simply stopped. (LawPhil — RA 3844, LawPhil — RA 6389)
Verified statutory data:
Approval and effectivity: September 10, 1971; takes effect upon approval (Sec. 39); separability at Sec. 38 (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Short title: amended Sec. 1 — “This Act shall be known as the Code of Agrarian Reforms of the Philippines” (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Department: amended Sec. 49 — DAR directly under the President, a Secretary with Commission on Appointments consent, one Undersecretary; Secs. 50, 50-A to 50-D on the Secretary’s qualifications and powers, a farmholding owner barred from appointment “unless such farmholding is under the leasehold system” (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Abolitions: Sec. 11 — Land Reform Project Administration and National Land Reform Council; Sec. 12 — Land Authority; Sec. 37 — references redirected to DAR (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Tenancy machinery: amended Sec. 4 — share tenancy “automatically converted to agricultural leasehold”; amended Sec. 34 — rental capped at 25% of average normal harvest less deductions; Sec. 34-A — rental credited as amortization (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Adjudication: Sec. 30 (amending Sec. 155) — Court of Agrarian Relations vested with Court of First Instance powers; Sec. 31 (amending Sec. 163) — Office of the Agrarian Counsel (LawPhil — RA 6389)

Usage Scenarios

1. Tracing the Department of Agrarian Reform’s Origin

Institutional historians use RA 6389 as the birth certificate of the modern DAR — the department that implemented PD 27’s 1972 emancipation decrees, became a ministry in 1978, and administers the comprehensive program of RA 6657 today. (LawPhil — RA 6389, Wikipedia — Land reform in the Philippines)

2. Reading the Statute Chain of Philippine Agrarian Reform

The Code is the middle link of the standard sequence: RA 3844 (1963) abolished share tenancy on a proclamation trigger and built the first agency machine; RA 6389 (1971) made conversion automatic and rebuilt the machine as a department; PD 27 (1972) transferred ownership of rice-and-corn lands; RA 6657 (1988) extended coverage to all agricultural lands “regardless of tenurial arrangement and commodity produced.” (LawPhil — RA 3844, LawPhil — RA 6389, LawPhil — PD 27, LawPhil — RA 6657)

3. Applying the Automatic Leasehold Conversion

Lawyers computing leasehold rights on tenanted land work from the amended Section 4 — conversion by operation of law from the 1971 effectivity, at the Section 34 rental cap, with Section 34-A’s amortization credit toward ownership. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

4. Distinguishing 1971 from 1972

Researchers correcting the popular record use the Code to date the reorganization: the DAR was created and its predecessor agencies abolished a year before Proclamation No. 1081, under the ordinary legislative process, not by martial-law decree. (LawPhil — RA 6389, Wikipedia — Land reform in the Philippines)

Strategies

Amend rather than replace: by legislating through amendments to the living 1963 Code, Congress preserved the leasehold, expropriation, and financing architecture while replacing its governing institutions — continuity of program with discontinuity of machinery. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Dissolve forward: each abolished agency’s functions, appropriations, records, equipment, and personnel passed intact to the Department, and Section 37 redirected all statutory references — the wind-up template RA 3844 had itself used on NARRA. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Remove the administrative excuse: automatic conversion stripped the proclamation trigger that had let tenancy linger where machinery was unready — the 1971 answer to the 1963 Code’s chronic delay. (LawPhil — RA 3844, LawPhil — RA 6389)
Guard the department’s head: the Secretary’s qualifications and powers were legislated in detail, with the leasehold condition on landholding appointees — an anti-capture device written into the statute. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

Security and Safety Measures

Tenure by operation of law: the automatic conversion of share tenancy to leasehold converted the tenant’s status without needing any office to act — the statute’s strongest tenure security. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
The rental ceiling: the twenty-five percent cap less deductions, with rentals credited as amortization, protected the tenant’s pocket as the conversion protected his status. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Counsel for the tenant class: the Agrarian Counsel’s statutory duty to represent tenants and lessees gave the weaker party publicly funded legal protection. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
Continuity of the legal estate: the transfer clauses kept funds, records, and pending business alive across the reorganization, and Section 37 preserved the effect of unrepealed statutes by redirecting their references. (LawPhil — RA 6389)
For researchers: cite the Code by its amended sections of RA 3844, not by RA 6389’s own section numbers alone — the numbering of the 1963 Code carried, and secondary summaries blur the two. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

Historical Context

The Code of 1971 was the second recasting of the reform legislation begun under Diosdado Macapagal. The Agricultural Land Reform Code of August 8, 1963 — RA 3844, examined in this wiki’s entry on that statute — had declared the economic family-size farm the basis of Philippine agriculture, converted tenancy through the National Land Reform Council’s regional proclamations, and built the Land Authority, Land Bank, and Agricultural Credit Administration; its implementation lagged before a landlord-weighted Congress and unappropriated funds. (LawPhil — RA 3844, Wikipedia — Land reform in the Philippines) On September 10, 1971, with the constitutional convention then sitting and martial law a year away, President Ferdinand Marcos signed RA 6389: the Code of Agrarian Reforms, the automatic conversion of tenancy, and the Department of Agrarian Reform in place of the Authority and its Council — the reorganization the standard record marks as the birth of the DAR. (LawPhil — RA 6389, Wikipedia — Land reform in the Philippines)

The Department’s first great assignment came at once. PD 27 of October 21, 1972 — the Tenant Emancipation Decree this wiki profiles — decreed rice-and-corn tenants deemed owners of family-size farms, directed the Department of Agrarian Reform through its Secretary to promulgate the rules, and legislated the non-transferability of emancipated titles by reference to “this Decree, the Code of Agrarian Reforms and other existing laws and regulations” — the textual bond that makes the 1971 Code the operative statute behind the 1972 emancipation. (LawPhil — PD 27) The 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law then superseded the statutory framework — covering all public and private agricultural lands regardless of tenurial arrangement or commodity — so that the Code survives today chiefly as the DAR’s charter of origin and the source of the automatic leasehold conversion. (LawPhil — RA 6657)

Challenges and Controversies

Amendment or New Code?

Styled as an amendment to RA 3844, the statute re-titled the Code and replaced its institutional spine; whether the result is “the Agricultural Land Reform Code as amended” or a new Code is a drafting ambiguity — the amended Section 1’s own answer being the new name. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

The Machinery Problem, Continued

Automatic conversion removed the proclamation excuse but could not conjure the implementing capacity the 1963 program had lacked; the standard account of the era treats the 1971 Code as another underfunded promise, redeemed in form only when PD 27 transferred the rice-and-corn lands by decree. (LawPhil — RA 6389, Wikipedia — Land reform in the Philippines)

Abolished in 1971, Not 1972

Popular memory folds the Land Authority’s and the Council’s abolition into the martial-law reorganizations after Proclamation No. 1081; the statutory record is categorical that RA 6389 abolished both on September 10, 1971, by Sections 11 and 12. (LawPhil — RA 6389)

A Statute Between Two Eras

Passed by the last full Congress before martial law and executed by the department that became martial law’s agrarian instrument, the Code is read both as the reform tradition’s legislative culmination and as the platform for decree-based reform. (LawPhil — RA 6389, LawPhil — PD 27)