- Details
- Category: Properties
- Published on Tuesday, 12 February 2013 18:50
- Written by Roderick L. Abad
REP. Rodolfo G. Valencia, together with housing and real-estate groups advocating for responsible and equitable land-use planning, called for a “more inclusive, more consultative and more comprehensive” national framework for the management and allocation of the country’s resources.
This developed when Senate Bill 3091, also known as the National Land Use Act (NLUA), underwent its third reading on February 5 following President Aquino’s certification of its passage in Congress as urgent.
“All of us here are in support of a ‘real, honest-to-goodness’ National Land Use Act. In fact, we have been trying to push this for so many, many years, but it has got to be a balanced national land use, [and] not an imbalanced national land use that only favors a segment of our society,” the Oriental Mindoro First District congressman and chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Committee of the House of Representatives said during a press conference held last week in Makati City.
Joining him in opposing the immediate passage of SB 3091 were the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations Inc. (Creba), Subdivision and Housing Developers Association Inc. (SHDA), Organization of Socialized Housing Developers of the Philippines Inc. (OSHDP), National Real Estate Association Inc. (NREA), Philippine Association of Real Estate Boards and Philippine Institute of Real Estate Services Practitioners Inc.
Just like the speedy progress of its counterpart measure House Bill 6545, or the National Land Use and Management Act (NLUMA), which hurdled its third and final reading in the House of Representatives in September 2012, they were alarmed by reports that the proposed NLUA, which has been languishing in Congress for almost two decades, is being fast-tracked even when it has not been submitted to wide-ranging official consultations with stakeholders.
“We are very concerned that the land-use bills now pending in Congress have proceeded without an exhaustive consultation from the very sector that will primarily be affected by it,” said lawyer Ryan T. Tan, president of OSHDP.
“We’d like to see a bill that is not rushed, but a bill that takes into consideration the experts that are needed to make a very comprehensive land-use plan for our country,” added Paul H. Tanchi, SHDA president.
They also found flaws in their provisions, which could have a negative impact on the economic upsurge of the Philippines. One of these is the creation of the National Land Use Policy Council under the House version of the bill or the National Land Use Commission under the House draft, which not only limits the representation of the private sector but also sets aside the powers of the local government units over the proper planning and management of its land use conferred upon it by the Local Government Code.
Another feared effect of the NLUA/NLUMA is the definition of all agricultural lands as protected areas, leaving nothing of the land pie for other uses, such as settlements, infrastructure, tourism, real-estate development and other non-agricultural developments.
“The property sector has never been against the allocation of the best and most productive lands for agricultural purposes to provide food security for our people,” said Charlie A. V. Gorayeb, national president of Creba. “However, modern times dictate that mere allocation of land is not enough. We need to apply modern technology in food production, which we lack.”
Once the two similar bills will be passed into law in their present forms, moratorium on conversion of agricultural lands shall follow.
“The land that will be mostly affected by this will be those in the countryside because the urban areas, of course, are not subjected to conversion,” said NREA President Benigno T. Cabrieto Jr. “So, what will happen is that the development in the countryside will be gravely affected. It will slow down. There will be more urban migration.”
While these bills would result in a Policy Framework Law, they also contain special penal provisions, which actually violate the Bill of Rights.
“If these [and some other administrative provisions] will not be amended, I could say clearly that these will terribly affect the economic boom that we now have or we claimed to have under the administration of President Aquino,” said Valencia.
In Photo: (From left) Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations Inc. National President Charlie A. V. Gorayeb; Rep. Rodolfo G. Valencia of the First District of Oriental Mindoro, chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Committee of the House of Representatives; and Subdivision and Housing Developers Association Inc. President Paul H. Tanchi.
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