Presidential Decree No. 815 (PD 815) — 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."
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 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."
SEC. 2. All provisions of existing laws, orders, decrees,
rules and regulations inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed or
modified accordingly.
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
Source: Supreme Court E-Library, Republic of the Philippines. Philippine laws are public documents (works of the government).
