A Review of Land Settlements in the Philippines 1900-1975

Abstract

The history of land settlement programs in the Philippines from 1900 to 1975 is reviewed from secondary sources, including three case studies. A few similarities are noticed among all of the resettlement movements: (a) the small number of families that are directly resettled by government programs, and (b) the large proportion of spontaneous migrants that are attracted by the government stimulus. One conclusion is that while land settlement increased total production of the country as a whole, it had unintended side effects such as increased cultural conflicts. Neither can land settlement be expected to permanently solve agrarian problems although the presence of frontier land can temporarily delay acute conditions.