- Published on Monday, 03 December 2012 17:54
- Written by Butch del Castillo / Omerta
LANDOWNERS
in the country would be interested to know that the House of
Representatives has passed on third reading a measure that would
reallocate most of the nation’s land resources in favor of
agrarian-reform beneficiaries.
This measure is House
Bill 6545, also known as the National Land Use and Management Act
(Nluma). It was hardly discussed or debated on, either at the committee
or plenary level. Yet it was “fast-tracked” and approved on third
reading in October before Congress went into recess.
The public was totally
unaware that the measure was in the works until Rep. Rodolfo G.
Valencia (First District, Oriental Mindoro) delivered a fully documented
privilege speech on November 19 denouncing the measure. He described it
as regressive piece of legislation with disastrous implications for the
economy. He even called it “a mere subterfuge to perpetuate the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program [Carp].”
HB 6545 is supposedly
the “consolidated version” of at least eight different national land-use
policy bills that were all referred to the special committee on land
use and the appropriations panel. For some reason, however, the two
committees adopted most of the provisions of the version jointly
authored by Representatives Kaka J. Bag-ao and Walden F. Bello.
It seems ironic that
most of the 50 or so House members listed as the bill’s co-authors do
not seem to realize the dire (or DAR) after-effects that the measure
would bring once it is signed into law.
For one thing, HB 6545
grants the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) enormous powers to
reclassify and confiscate almost any kind of land into agricultural land
for the benefit of agrarian-reform beneficiaries.
(Obviously, the
principal authors intended to endear themselves to the members of the
farming sector, with the midterm elections only a few months away.
Meanwhile, critics of the measure are saying that, as its acronym
(pronounced naluma) mischievously implies, the proposed law is far
behind the times. It will attempt to apply an old-fashioned concept to
solve contemporary economic problems.)
It took Valencia,
chairman of the House committee on housing and urban development, to
denounce the apparent “railroading” of the proposed Nluma.
In his privilege speech on November 19, he told his colleagues:
“The larger interests
of our country and our national economy...compel me to speak up and call
the attention of this chamber to the grave, deleterious and
far-reaching consequences that HB 6545, if allowed to become a law in
its present form, may cause upon, not only the real estate and housing
industry, but also on our national economy as a whole, and on the
equilibrium of social equity and justice as enshrined in our
Constitution.”
Valencia, however,
made it clear at the outset that he was not questioning “the good
intentions and compassionate concern for certain sectors of our
citizenry that underlie this proposed measure and the earlier versions
from which it has been consolidated.” He was apparently alluding to the
three leading sponsors of the bill, namely, Bag-ao, Bello and Rep.
Jeffrey P. Ferrer.
Valencia, by the way,
is known in the private sector as a “community builder,” having been in
the real estate and human settlements business since he was 16 years
old. So if there is anybody who knows the property business, that person
would be him.
In the same speech,
Valencia enumerated the following objections to HB 6545, which he said
the Senate must take up and debate upon:
• Nluma neither
harmonizes nor justly allocates the country’s lands; it promotes
principally the interest of the agrarian-reform beneficiaries—apparently
at the expense of the rest of the nation.
• The measure is merely a subterfuge to perpetuate the CARP.
• In the proposed National Land Use Planning Council, the private-land sector will not have a representative.
• The bill pretends to
promote an equitable allocation of land resources, leaving no portion
of the land pie for settlements, infrastructure and other
non-agricultural developments.
• It is a class legislation that violates the Constitution’s “equal protection” and “non-impairment” clauses.
• It imposes excessively severe penal sanctions.
• The non-impairment clause is made applicable only to marginalized sectors.
• It poses a big threat and disincentive to both local and foreign investments in the country.
Valencia asked: Why is
implementation of the CARP given the highest priority in this proposed
national land-use act? What happens to the other land uses necessary for
the other sectors of society?
He pointed out that
land conversion would be placed under the jurisdiction of the DAR. The
proposed Nluma is supposedly meant to “harmonize” interests in land.
“Why then is the DAR—whose mandate is solely to protect the interest of
land-reform beneficiaries—being made the final arbiter of land
allocation and planning even for the local government units, which are
mandated to promote not just the interests of the peasantry but the
entire local citizenry?”
Under HB 6545,
Valencia said, the DAR is given exclusive authority to approve
conversion of all agricultural lands. Not only that, the power of the
Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to reclassify
land is also virtually abrogated. The DILG then must defer to the DAR as
far as reclassifying land use is concerned.
Under the Nluma,
priority areas for agricultural development are CARP farmlands and all
nationally protected areas for agriculture and agro-industrial
development. Practically all lands would be considered agricultural,
since any land can be made suitable for agriculture with the use of the
right technology. Thus, except for timber lands, mineral lands and
national parks, everything else will be reserved for agricultural use.
Given the population
growth rate and demographic trends and needs, exactly how much and at
what rate can lands be released for non-agricultural uses? (By 2016,
Valencia revealed, the country’s huge housing backlog would have
ballooned to 5.7 million homes, increasing at the rate of 250,000 units
per year.)
Under the proposed
Nluma, practically all agricultural lands are “protected” from
conversion to non-agricultural uses, including priority infrastructure
projects, except when already in the hands of agrarian-reform
beneficiaries.
“Where is equity or
justice in a provision that obviously favors agrarian- reform
beneficiaries while denying the rest of the citizenry [any] right to the
beneficial uses of land, when out of the country’s population of 100
million only some 5.7 million are farmers and fisherfolk, as against
some 23.8 million who live in slums and are homeless and 40 million are
subsisting below the poverty line and, therefore, in need of a variety
of services and facilities to improve their socioeconomic conditions?”
Valencia asked.
According to him, the
contents and the manner by which the bill is being pushed cannot sit
well with the sectors that are at the forefront of the country’s current
economic performance.
“Not only are they
bothered by the seeming disregard and violation of the letter and spirit
of the Constitution, they are also disappointed by the parochialism
that is inherent in many provisions of the bill,” Valencia said.
He also said he was
sure HB 6545 would send very disturbing signals to both foreign and
local investors, fund managers, industrialists and business managers who
are now actively participating in the country’s sustained housing boom,
the dynamic growth of the BPO industry, the continuing inflow of
overseas Filipino workers remittances, the resurgence of tourism and
agribusiness, and all the other enterprises that are contributory to the
growth of the national economy.
Investors in general
are not interested in CARP lands. Therefore, no private-sector financing
may be expected for land classified for protected use.
“The inescapable
impression on those who have bothered to read HB 6545 closely is that
the proposed Nluma partakes the nature of class legislation. Once
enacted, it would surely be questioned for its constitutionality,
specifically for violating the Charter’s ‘due process’ and ‘equal
protection’ clauses.”
(On Friday’s Omerta: The proposed compromise)
No comments:
Post a Comment