1.0 Introduction T he 1986 People Power Revolution that ousted a dictatorship and restored democratic processes signalled a period of tenure reforms. The 1987 Philippine Constitution was seen as reform-oriented, nationalistic and detailed in emphasizing human and social rights, and the limitations of State powers. It declared that “property bears a social function” (Art. XI, Sec. 6) and therefore the right to own land and other property also bears the obligation to use it according to norms that are generally agreed upon, and beneficial to society. The 1990s thus saw the enactment of landmark asset reform legislation in the Philippines – the Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA) of 1992, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, and the Fisheries Code of 1998. The Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) Program was instituted in 1995 through Executive Order 263. Agrarian reform, which had been legislated on piecemeal basis since the 1950s, culminated in the passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) of 1988. All these land and resource reforms were the fruits of the collective struggle by different sectors – the urban poor, farmers and farmworkers, indigenous cultural communities, and fisherfolk. Land and resource tenure reforms are founded on the fact that a major cause of poverty is the unequal distribution of natural resources and productive assets. Thus, poverty reduction is not just a matter of providing social safety nets or jobs, but of changing unequal relations in tenure rights and property ownership. Land and resource tenure reforms manifest a rights-based approach to poverty reduction. In recent years, questions have been raised on how well the government has implemented these land and resource tenure reform and social justice programs. Moreover, there are uncertainties as to how responsive these State policies have been to the realities faced by the poor sectors. Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) 15