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In this prolix age, practically everything a person does and owns affects the public interest directly or at least vicariously, unavoidably drawing him within the embrace of the law. Increasingly, he is hemmed in by all manner of statutory and procedural platforms required by law. That is why, all over the world, you will observe every country including the Philippines has provided different courts with specific issues as their respective jurisdictions in order for individuals seeking relief from courts will know where to file their cases.

In the Philippines, we have the labor courts for labor cases; civil courts for civil cases (no penalty of imprisonment) and criminal cases (with penalty of imprisonment); and agrarian courts, which is the DARAB (Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board), for agrarian cases, e.g. where the subject matter involve is agricultural lands, and all matters or incidents involving the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, Extension with reforms or CARPER (R.A. 9700).

The DARAB like all courts of the land under its aegis is a special court created to handle cases only involving agrarian issues, meaning, where the subject matter is public and private lands which are agricultural in nature, and all matters and issues connected with the implementation of the CARPER except those falling under the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The key factor for determination is whether the subject matter in dispute is agricultural land. Therefore, if the land involve is not agricultural in nature, the parties should not file their cases before the DARAB. Please see the following authorities: BACALING v MUYA, G.R. No. 148404-5, April 11, 2002; PASONG BAYABAS FARMERS ASSO., ET AL., G.R. No. 142359 and 142980, May 25, 2004; PROVINCE OF CAMARINES SUR v COUR OF APPEALS, G.R. No. 103125, May 17, 1993; NATALIA REALTY v DAR, G.R. No. 103302, August 12, 1993; FORTICH vs. CORONA, G.R. No. 131457, Nov. 17,1998; FORTICH vs. CORONA, G.R. No. 131457; GONZALES, ET AL.vs. COURT OF APPEALS, ET AL., G.R. No. 36213, June 29, 1989.

The DARAB is a co-equal body with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) and its decisions are beyond the RTC's control (SPRINGFIELD DEVT. CORP., INC., ET AL. VS. HON.PRES. JUDGE ETC., ET AL. G.R. No. 142628. February 6, 2007). As to its role to the CARPER (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms, R.A. 9700), the DARAB, is the Adjudicatory arm of the DAR and was mandated by law to determine disputes between and among litigants, landowners and tenants, tillers, and farmer beneficiaries over agricultural lands covered under the CARPER of the government, and protecting the parties against arbitrary or oppressive action by the DAR administrative agency which was mandated by law to implement the CARPER. The DARAB stands between the citizens and the DAR officials, among others, as a bulwark against executive excesses and

misuse or abuse of power by the DAR administrative agency in connection with its implementation of the CARPER.

The E.Os 229, 129-A, and later R.A. 6657, the laws creating the DARAB are basically a charter of limitations of the DAR administrative agency and enshrine a system of separation of powers and checks and balances from its counterpart, the DARAB, under which no one is the law nor above the law. It ordains the weaker department, the DARAB, as the guardian and arbiter of the legal and property rights in agrarian disputes. It postulates and requires a free and independent body, the DARAB, sworn to defend and enforce the CARPER without fear or favor. Like His Holiness, the Pope, the DARAB has no battalions, tanks or guns to enforce its decisions. Its strength lies in that its verdicts would be obeyed by the sheer moral force and truth of its judgments for as long as it kept the faith and confidence reposed in it by the people through the law upon which it was created to render justice and sustained its moral conviction that through the DARAB, justice and the voice of reason and truth would prevail in the end.

To elucidate further, the DAR has dual functions in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL, now CARPER), namely:

1. The implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) based on the law, which is the task performed by the DAR Administrative Agency; and

2. Adjudication of agrarian cases, and all matters and disputes involving the implementation of CARPER, which is the function exercised by the DARAB.

Therefore, the DAR is divided into two branches, these are: the administrative agency, on the one hand, and the DARAB, on the other hand, and each is independent from each other because one is exercising incompatible duties and responsibilities in every point from each other. However, when it comes to judicial issue in agrarian reform, the DARAB is supreme. It is because it is vested with the power to annul the acts of the DAR administrative agency when not conformable to the fundamental law. This is the reason for what some quarters call the doctrine of judicial supremacy. Circumstantially, the DAR administrative agency cannot intrude into the function of the DARAB without running afoul of the independence thereof. Otherwise, this would be inimical to the public interest since a cabal between the DAR administrative agency and the DARAB would be perceived and or, that the administrative agency is exercising complete and absolute control over the DARAB.

Pursuant to the foregoing premises, the purpose for the enactment of E.Os 229, and later R.A. 6657, and now R.A. 9700, is to provide a sensible equilibrium against suspicion by the landowners of bias and collusion between the administrative agency and the DARAB since they are both under the umbrella of the DAR. Correspondingly, the administrative agency cannot muscle into the turf of the DARAB by whatever moral dominance otherwise the purpose for which the law was designed would be put to naught.