CALAMBA AGRARIAN PROBLEMS

Ownership of the Calamba hacienda passed on to the Dominicans after the Jesuits who
originally owned it- were expelled in 1768. The Dominicans owned practically all the lands
around Calamba. The tenants suffered since many years due to the unjustified taxes they had to
pay. Even if there was an economic crisis or the harvest was bad, the rent and taxes went up. The
tenants suffered under the friars.
Rizal had not anticipated but he soon became the center of the tenants struggle against the
Dominicans. It started innocently. On 30th December 1887, when the government, wondering
why the revenue paid by the Dominicans Order had remained constant despite the everincreasing size of cultivated lands, formally asked the Calamba town council to determine
whether there had been any increase in the products and the size of the Dominican estate over the
past three years.
The friars wanted to withhold the tenants to tell the truth. The Rizal family as well as the other
Calamba tenants wanted to tell the truth. The tenants asked Rizal to draft a report for the town
council.
Rizal asked his town mates to supply him with all the relevant facts about the estate from the
very beginning.
What came out was a horror story of Dominican corruption and financial deceit on a massive
scale. The original hacienda owned by the Jesuits consisted of only a small part of land and
included only a part of the town, but the Dominicans had claimed a much more extensive area,
no less than the whole town and its surrounding fields. The Dominicans were paying the
government only the income tax due on the original smaller hacienda.
Rizal wrote down his findings, which were signed by the tenants in January 1888, and he
submitted the report to the government.
Rizal advised his family to stop paying the rent. The rest of the Calamba tenants followed suit
and with Rizals encouragement, petitioned the government to intervene by authorizing and
supervising the drawing up of a new contract between the people of Calamba and the Dominican
landowners.
The friars were furious because they were attacked on their most sensitive point: money! The
report never reached the desk of the governor-general. The Dominicans responded by filing an
action for eviction against the Calamba tenants. When the justice of the Peace of Calamba ruled
in favor of the tenants. The Dominicans immediately brought the case to the Supreme Court in
Manila, which immediately decided in the Dominicans favor. The tenants and the Rizal family
had no recourse but to appeal their case to the Supreme Court in Madrid.
The Dominicans put pressure on Malacaang to eliminate Rizal. Governor-general Terrero
advised Rizal to leave the Philippines for his own good.

The liberal governor-general Terrerro was at that time replaced by the conservative general
Valeriano Weyler in 1888. He was completely on the side of the Dominicans. One of his first acts
was to enforce the court ruling for the eviction of the tenants. The first to be evicted was the
Rizal family.
On 6 September 1890, general Weyler began enforcing the will of the Dominicans by sending
artillery and military forces to Calamba which started to demolish the house of Rizals parents.
Rizals brother, brothers in law were arrested and exiled to different places of the archipelago.
On the first day 60 families were thrown out of their houses and the sugar mills and all other
buildings they had erected were destroyed. The Dominicans forbade the rest of the townspeople
to give the unfortunates lodging and hospitality. By the end of September 400 tenants had been
evicted.

Agrarian problem in the present

The land reform in the developing world has been put in question for its failure to address
poverty issue in agrarian setting despite the altered agrarian relations in the latter half of the past
century. As a result it started to disappear in the development agenda; though I still find this issue
relevant if we look into the poverty and worsening inequality problem common among
developing countries amidst the recent promotion and adoption of industrialization-led
development.
The outlined arguments provide a glimpse on the politics and historical origin of land reform in
the Philippines and identify core issues delimiting the effective
Implementation of the present government reform program
-CARP.
Despite of the common belief that land reform would bring economic well off to the poor farm
beneficiaries, I raise some problems stemming down from weak government and tainted political
leadership. The national level political dynamics, dominated by the landed oligarchy behind the
Legislation of CARP in 1988, have been a constant feature of the Philippine politics when it
comes to land reform legislation of the various regimes in the past.
As a consequence, the CARP has done not much to improve the lives of those people in the
countryside. Given the failure of governance for effective land reform, the end results have been
far from the goals after more than two decades of implementation. This argument therefore is
very timely in assessing CARP since this program is nearing its end, and will hopefully provide
insights if CARP is indeed failing or not in meeting its promises.

Reaction:
The problem of the calamba tenants when the Dominicans wants to own their lands, even they are paying
taxes. Dominicans is not fair because they want to own everything. The tenants suffer because of the
Dominicans. Dominicans they are so self-centered they want to get what tenants have even the justice of

the Peace of Calamba ruled in favor of the tenants but the dominicans make a way that the court
favor of them.

Reaction:
The problem in the agrarian in the present when the governments did not take an action the
people is suffering of poverty. They are fail to their promises they make a goal but after the
program the result is far from their goal.

Summary:
The Dominicans owned all the lands in calamba the tenants suffer due to the unjustified taxes
they had to pay. Dominicans they do everything to owned everything. But the government favor
to the tenants but the Dominicans immediately brought the case to the Supreme Court in Manila,
which immediately decided in the Dominicans favorand also the Dominicans put pressure on
Malacaang to eliminate Rizal. Governor-general Terrero advised Rizal to leave the Philippines
for his own good.
and for the agrarian reform they are fail to meet their goal and they are fail to make an action, so
that the people are suffering of poverty and worsening inequality problem.

Submitted by: Beverly Canarejo

BSN3-B