COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN REFORM LAW OF 1988
Republic Act No. 6657
CHAPTER X
SPECIAL AREAS OF CONCERN
SEC. 40. Special Areas of Concern. – As an integral part of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, the following principles in these special areas of concern shall be observed:
1) Subsistence Fishing. – Small fisher folk, including seaweed farmers, shall be assured of greater access to the utilization of water resources;
2) Logging and Mining concessions. – Subject to the requirement of a balanced ecology and conservation of water resources, suitable areas, as determined by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), in logging, mining and pasture areas, must be opened up for agrarian settlements whose beneficiaries will be required to undertake reforestation and conservation of products methods. Subject to existing laws, rules and regulation, settlers and members of tribal communities must be allowed to enjoy and exploit the products of the forests other than timber within the logging concessions.
3) Sparsely Occupied Public Agricultural lands. – Sparsely occupied agricultural lands of the public domain will be surveyed, proclaimed and developed as farm settlements for qualified landless people based on an organized program to ensure their orderly and early development
Agricultural land allocations will be made for ideal family-sized farms as determined by the PARC. Pioneers and other settlers will be treated equally in every respect.
Subject to the prior rights of qualified beneficiaries, uncultivated lands of the public domain shall be made available on a lease basis to interested and qualified parties. Parties who will engage in the development of capital-intensive, traditional or pioneering crops will be given priority.
The lease period, which shall not be more than a total of fifty (50) years, shall be proportionate to the amount of investment and production goals of the lessee. A system of evaluation and audit will be instituted.
4) Idle, abandoned, foreclosed and sequestered lands. – Idle, abandoned, foreclosed and sequestered lands shall be planned for distribution as homelots and family-sized farm lots to actual occupants. If land area permits, other landless families will be accommodated in these lands.
5) Rural Women. – All qualified women members of the agricultural labor force must be guaranteed and assured equal rights to ownership of the land, equal shares of the farm’s produce, and representation in advisory or appropriate decision-making bodies.
6) Veterans and Retirees. – In accordance with Section 7 of Article XVI of the Constitution, landless war veterans and veterans of military campaigns, their surviving spouse and orphans, retirees of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Integrated National Police (INP), returnees, surrenderees, and similar beneficiaries shall be given due consideration in the disposition of agricultural lands of the public domain.
7) Agriculture Graduates. – Graduates of agricultural schools who are landless shall be assisted by the government, through the DAR, in their desire to own and till agricultural lands.
