<P> During the American Colonial Period, tenant farmers complained about the sharecropping system, as well as by the dramatic increase in population which added economic pressure to the tenant farmers' families . As a result, an agrarian reform program was initiated by the Commonwealth . However, success of the program was hampered by ongoing clashes between tenants and landowners . </P> <P> An example of these clashes includes one initiated by Benigno Ramos through his Sakdalista movement, which advocated tax reductions, land reforms, the breakup of the large estates or haciendas, and the severing of American ties . The uprising, which occurred in Central Luzon in May 1935, claimed about a hundred lives </P> <P> When the Philippine Commonwealth was established, President Manuel L. Quezon implemented the Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 . The purpose of this act was to regulate the share - tenancy contracts by establishing minimum standards . Primarily, the Act provided for better tenant - landlord relationship, a 50--50 sharing of the crop, regulation of interest to 10% per agricultural year, and a safeguard against arbitrary dismissal by the landlord . The major flaw of this law was that it could be used only when the majority of municipal councils in a province petitioned for it . Since landowners usually controlled such councils, no province ever asked that the law be applied . Therefore, Quezón ordered that the act be mandatory in all Central Luzon provinces . However, contracts were good only for one year . By simply refusing the renew their contract, landlords were able to eject tenants . As a result, peasant organizations agitated in vain for a law that would make the contract automatically renewable for as long as the tenants fulfilled their obligations . </P> <P> In 1936, this Act was amended to get rid of its loophole, but the landlords made its application relative and not absolute . Consequently, it was never carried out in spite of its good intentions . In fact, by 1939, thousands of peasants in Central Luzon were being threatened with wholesale eviction . By the early 1940s, thousands of tenants in Central Luzon were ejected from their farmlands and the rural conflict was more acute than ever . </P>

History of land reform in the philippines ppt