May 7, 1997
DAR OPINION NO. 52-97
Mr. Alfredo Hilado
c/o Daniel R. Lacson, Jr.
Presidential Adviser on
Countryside Development
Negros Navigation Building
849 Pasay Road, Makati City
Dear Mr. Hilado:
This has reference to your letter dated 14 March 1997 seeking opinion on the precise interpretation relative to the award of disturbance compensation to farmer-beneficiaries in cases of land use conversion.
It is your lawyers' belief that the award of disturbance compensation pursuant to DAR Administrative Order No. 15, Series of 1988 and DAR Administrative Order No. 2, Series of 1990 in cases of land use conversion is confined only to specific portions cultivated by farmworkers for their own use and benefit; that said implementing rules and regulations find no application to lands being cultivated by farmworkers under an employer-employee relationship because it is the provisions of the Labor Code on separation-termination benefits that will govern and not the disturbance compensation provided for under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL); and that to rule otherwise would in effect make the farmworkers, who are not occupying and cultivating any specific landholding for their own benefit, a special class enjoying the payment of disturbance compensation for higher in value or amount than what the tenant-lessees are entitled to receive under the law.
An assiduous examination of DAR Administrative Order No. 15, Series 1988 and DAR Administrative Order No. 2, Series of 1990 readily reveals that in all cases of land use conversion that will involve the displacement of tenant-lessees, such lessees shall be entitled to a disturbance compensation equivalent to five (5) times the average of the gross harvests on their landholding during the last five (5) preceding calendar years, pursuant to Section 36 of R.A. No. 3844, as amended by Section 7 of R.A. No. 6389. The aforesaid implementing rules and regulations dealing on the payment of disturbance compensation unmistakably mandate and provide that the award of disturbance compensation thereunder is confined and limited only in favor of tenant-lessees of the subject landholding.
Thus, we are in accord with your lawyers' view that should it be otherwise farmworkers, who are not occupying and cultivating any specific landholding for their own benefit, would in effect make them a special class entitled to disturbance compensation which may be higher in value or amount than what the tenant-lessees are entitled to receive under the law. While paragraph (e) of DAR Administrative Order No. 15, Series of 1988 provides for the payment of compensation to displaced farmworkers in a manner similar to lessees' disturbance compensation, it is not however necessarily or exactly the same as that of the disturbance compensation contemplated under Section 36 of R.A. No. 3844, as amended. Accordingly, the affected farmworkers should be provided with other forms of compensation as a result of the said land use conversion.
We hope to have clarified the matter with you.
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) ARTEMIO A. ADASA, JR.
Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, and Policy and Planning
Copy furnished:
Atty. Pacifico V. Gomez, Jr.
Director IV and concurrently
OIC-Head Executive Assistant
Office of the Secretary
DAR Central Office, Quezon City