ABSTRACT
Land-tenure structures have long been viewed as fundamental impediments to the enhancement of agricultural productivity and the initiation of a process of sustained economic development based on a vibrant agricultural sector. Agrarian reform policy-involving both redistribution of landownership and the development of complementary credit, extension, infrastructure, pricing, and research programs-has been central to the recent debate over political and social change in the Philippines. In pursuing development and reform, the Philippine state has been forced to confront the complex relationship between reform and contested control. The cultural ethos of rural Filipinos is generally portrayed in terms that suggest it is anti-thetical to peasant activism or rebellion. Regional and ethnic diversity and long-standing conflicts have played a crucial role in the resistance to redistributive reform in the Philippines. The paternal construct of Philippine landowners notwithstanding, agrarian relations are not characterized by a hegemonic ideology, if by that one mean the existence of a universally embraced construct of agrarian relations.
