AMENDING SECTION 4 OF P.D. NO. 583, DATED NOVEMBER 16, 1974, "PRESCRIBING PENALTIES FOR THE UNLAWFUL EJECTMENT, EXCLUSION, REMOVAL, OR OUSTER OF TENANT-FARMERS FROM THEIR FARMHOLDINGS."

• Number: Presidential Decree No. 815
• Sections: 4

Preamble

WHEREAS, there is an urgent need to further strengthen the

security of tenure of the tenant-farmers/agricultural lessees in the

cultivation of the landholding planted to rice and corn;

WHEREAS, despite various Decrees, Letters of Instructions

and other Orders as well as speeches and other pronouncements by me that

tenant farmers and agricultural lessees should not be ejected or

dispossessed of the lands being cultivated by them, some landowners,

landholders, and/or agricultural lessors have resorted to various

schemes and devices with which to circumvent the aforementioned

pronouncements.

WHEREAS, in view of the numerous disturbing reports that

many landowners have subleased their tenanted land-holding planted to

rice and corn to other persons so that the latter appears in their

behalf as the legal possessor thereof without binding the landowner in

the event of a violation of the aforementioned Presidential Decrees Nos.

316 and 583, the government must act with dispatch to protect the

security of tenure of our tenant-farmers/agricultural lessees;

WHEREAS, this scheme is patently directed against a vital

program of the New Society and cannot be tolerated, much less

sanctioned, by the government;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the

Philippines, by virtue of the powers in me vested by the Constitution do

hereby decree and order:

Section 1

SECTION 1. Section 4 of P.D. No. 583 is hereby amended as

follows:

"Subject to the studies on zoning of the Human Settlements

Commission and unless previously authorized by the Secretary of Agrarian

Reform, any landowner, landholder, agricultural-lessor or anybody

acting for and in their behalf, who converts his tenanted land primarily

devoted to rice and corn into any non-agricultural use or into the

production of any other crop as a means to avoid the application of the

land reform laws or decrees to his landholdings and to dispossess his

tenant-farmers of the land tilled by them shall, upon conviction, suffer

the penalty of prision mayor or a fine ranging from P5,000.00 to

P10,000.00, or both, at the discretion of the Court.

"The same penalty shall be imposed on a landowner, landholder,

agricultural-lessor, or anybody acting for and in their behalf, who by

any other act, scheme or strategy shall eject, exclude, remove or oust

and/or cause the ouster, exclusion, removal or ejectment of a

tenant-farmer from his farmholdings in contravention of decrees, laws,

and other orders on land reform."

Section 2

SEC. 2. All provisions of existing laws, orders, decrees,

rules and regulations inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed or

modified accordingly.

Section 3

SEC. 3. This decree shall take effect immediately.

Done in the City of Manila, this 21st day of October, in the

year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-five.

(Sgd.)

FERDINAND E. MARCOS

President

Republic of the Philippines

By the President:

(Sgd.)

ALEJANDRO MELCHOR

Executive Secretary