June 18, 1973

DEPARTMENT MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 02-73

TO                :     All Regional Directors
                               District Officers
                              Agrarian Reform Team Leaders
                              Field Personnel

            Reports have been constantly received by this Department that landowners refuse to recognize leasehold as the governing relationship between them and the tenant-farmers who actually till their land primarily devoted to rice and/or corn resulting in certain untoward consequences, among which are the following:   DAcSIC

1.         Non-liquidation of the harvests;

2.         Filing on cases of qualified theft, estafa, coercion, threats, etc., to harass the tenant-farmers;

3.         Filing of ejectment cases in lands within the purview of Presidential Decree Number 27;

4.         Change of crops from palay and/or corn to other crops like sugarcane, coconuts, etc.;

5.         Physical acts of dispossession like bulldozing of farms, demolition and/or burning of houses, manhandling, mauling, intimidation, etc.;

6.         Sale or mortgage of lands to persons, group of persons, associations, corporation, and/or financial institutions;

7.         Subdivision or fragmentation of due land;

8.         Conversion of the land into urban purposes without following the procedure prescribed by law and regulations, which acts undermine or subvert the intent and provision of Presidential Decree No. 2 declaring the whole country as land reform area; Presidential Decree No. 27 emancipating the tenant-farmers from the bondage of the soil, Letters of Instructions Nos. 45, 46 and 52, and Memorandum of the President of November 25, 1972 and his instructions that no tenant-farmer should be ejected from his farmholding. Pending the promulgation of the rules and regulations implementing Presidential Decree No. 27, the status-quo between the landowners and tenant-farmers should be maintained. The instances enumerated above are violative of the status-quo relationship.

            Reports are also received that landowners and tenant-farmers do not agree on the rentals to be paid by the latter to the farmer. Under the status-quo directive of the President, the determination of leasehold rentals is by this Department. Being the officers of the Department in the field charged with the duty to enforce the provisions of the said Decrees, Letters of Instructions, Memorandum and directives, and of course, the Code of Agrarian Reforms, you, as Regional Directors, are directed to see to it that the tenancy relationship between the tenant-farmers and their landowners should be leasehold and you are to determine and fix the provisional rentals that are to be paid by said tenant-farmers, taking as your guide the provisions of Section 34 of Republic Act No. 3844, as amended, and the said Presidential Decrees, Letters of Instructions, Memorandum, and directives. In the event of disagreement and this results in the failure of mediation, the case shall be referred to the Court of Agrarian Relations for adjudication.   aATHES

            Whenever necessary, you shall seek the assistance of the PC Provincial Commander concerned to enforce the directive contained in this Memorandum Circular.

            For effective updating of continuing policies and plans and programs, you are enjoined to submit as often as possible reports of all cases and activities mentioned in this Memorandum Circular and on the actions taken or solutions made in the premises.

            Quezon City, June 18, 1973.

(SGD.) CONRADO F. ESTRELLA
Secretary

NOTE:   This Amended Memorandum Circular has the signed concurrence of Executive Judge Artemio C. Macalino of the Court of Agrarian Relations for and in behalf of all CAR Judges.