NCJ Number
82126
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Dated: (1981-1982) Pages: 89-113
Date Published
1982
Length
25 pages
Annotation
Formal conflict resolution is not the principal function of the Philippine Court of Agrarian Relations (CAR), as litigants mobilize the court's resources to increase their power over opponents and maximize gains, such that the CAR is limited in its ability to accomplish social change.
Abstract
The CAR was established in the mid-1950's to settle disputes arising from the cultivation of agricultural land where one of the parties works the land. It has primarily been concerned with landlord-tenant relationships. Over its history, it has expanded from the original 9 branches to the current 61 courts. In the latest extension of the legal authority of the central government into the rural areas, Presidential Decree No. 1508 incorporates the smallest political unit of the government, the barangay, into the judicial system by making it a prerequisite that certain disputes proceed first through conciliation at the village/neighborhood level. As litigants mobilize the court's resources to increase their power over their opponents, four factors appear to make a difference in the degree and manner the law is power: the party for whom rights are stipulated, the aims of the disputants, the purposes of the nonlitigant actors, and the relative nonlegal power of the parties to the dispute. Because the agrarian court exists in a social context where law, cultural norms, and the general distribution of power operate to the advantage of the 'haves,' it is limited in its capacity to promote social change. Thirty-two references are listed.