On National Land Use Policy: Salient Features of HB 3637

The bill provides for the establishment of crucial priorities for land use, especially to areas to be protected for ecological integrity and protected from industrial conversion to ensure food security. This provision is stated in Article 2, Section 10 of the bill. The bill also provides for the conduct of National Base Mapping and Geohazard Mapping Programs to provide relevant and timely data for land use planning. These mapping programs can fill up data gaps that hinder the effective land utilization and allocation. In terms of organization, the bill proposes for the creation of Land Use Policy Council that will be the highest policy making body on land use and final arbitrator on land use conflicts between or among agencies of the government.

Merits:
The conduct of mapping programs implies institutionalization of mapping programs in land use planning process. This provides identification and demarcation of areas that must be allocated accordingly. Aside from laying out parameters for identifying land that should be devoted to particular land use, it provide opportunity for specifying where or how much of these lands should be used accordingly. This is the current limitation of the National Physical Planning Framework. Specifically, it will lead to complete identification of protected areas such as the Network of Protected Areas for Agro-Industrial Development (NPAAAD), Strategic Agricultural and Fisheries Development Zones, forestlands and critical watershed areas. By establishment of crucial priorities for land use, it sets specific areas to address future land demand or land requirement.

Knowing that AKBAYAN party list advocates for agrarian reform program and its extension, their bill on land use act also reflects this advocacy. As stated in Section 29 of the bill, the priority areas for agricultural development are the CARP and CARPable areas. To ensure that these lands will be for agriculture use, prime agricultural areas (land suitability) and lands subject to CARP (principle of social justice and equity), must be protected from land use conversion. The bill links land use planning to land acquisition and distribution (LAD) and land rights to farmers. The bill implies that the security of land rights has to be guaranteed. The bill views that effective land utilization and allocation for development must also be in line with the principles of food sufficiency, improved productivity and social justice.

The bill reinforce local autonomy because LGUs have power to adopt and approve land use plans. Nevertheless, check and balance is ensured because the land use plans for implementation are still subject for review by the Land Use Policy Committee. This is explicitly stated in Article 5, Sections 23 and 24 of the bill.

Demerits:
On Public Participation:
While the bill stresses out the institutionalization of people’s participation in defining the framework and guiding the principles of land allocation by providing for the mandatory participation of stakeholders in key decision-making bodies on land use policy, there is no provision for the specific steps in public participation and consultation in land use plan formulation. There are no specific provisions on nature of hearing or qualification of persons or representative who can attend the meeting. The bill provides for the mandatory conduct of public hearing by the local development councils in preparation of land use plans at all level, as stated in Section 7 to Section 9 of the bill, but there are no specific provisions on how the mandatory public hearing will be carried through and how the public will be represented.

On Sanctions and Penalties:
Referring to Article 17 of the bill, the system of fines and sanctions for LGUs who have not completed and implemented the CLUP will hurt poor LGUs. Furthermore, the dynamics within local government is so complex that punishing public official or employee will not guarantee that after the sanction period, CLUPs will be completed and successfully implemented. Although the bearers of public offices have responsibility to the locality, punishing these persons doesn’t bring one to the real root of non-completion and non-implementation of CLUPs. This might be applicable for poor LGUs, LGUs getting most of its budget from Internal Revenue Allotment; they have weak access to financial resources that they cannot generate their own funds. Notwithstanding that there are considerable issues in the design of the IRA that spun-off vertical inequalities within lgus and horizontal imbalance across levels of LGUs.
Also, the bill doesn’t have provisions on how the LUPC will set parameters for investigation and how will they qualify non-implementation of CLUP; what are the parameters that will say that the CLUP has not been implemented. With the provisions not spelled out well, it gives the Executive Director (of LUPC) flexibility to maneuver or at least react to problems which will arise.

The Article 16 of the bill spells out the system of incentive and awards to LGUs that regularly update their CLUPs and ZO within prescribed period and the priority in giving technical assistance to LGUs. This provision creates bias against LGUs who are just starting in institutionalization of land use planning. This will widen the gap between the LGUs that started their CLUPs years ago and LGUs that are just beginning to formulate CLUP. The latter will always lag once compared with the former, leveraging on its primitive accumulation, with this system of incentives and awards. It is also equitable that they give equal technical assistance to LGUs which don’t have approved CLUP yet because the lack of technical assistance may be the reason why their CLUPs were not approved.

On the Planning Organization:
As stated in Section 19, the Executive Director of the Land Use Policy Council will be appointed by the President of the Philippines. Being the executive head of the LUPC and thus responsible for the implementation of policies adopted by the LUPC Board, the Executive Director bears important function in land utilization and allocation with LUPC being the highest policy making body on land use and final arbitrator on land use conflicts. The bill doesn’t provide for the process of selection or nomination of the Executive Director. Moreover, there is a question of independence because the Executive Director will be appointed by the President.

Impact of Practicum to Development Studies Students and its Significance to DS

As students of Development Studies, most of us aim to be development practitioners. The practicum program has become a good training ground and capacity-building undertaking for future development practitioners. Development should not be value-free; policies must be rather addressed to specific sectors - to the marginalized sectors. The practicum program specifically brought us to the rural communities wherein we were exposed to myriad of issues that led the farmers to vicious cycle of poverty – the inequitable allocation of land resources and unfair agricultural trade was not compensated with an efficient local service delivery, making rural poverty worse than urban poverty. The integration with the masses, more than being humbling, was an empowering experience. We have equipped ourselves with grassroots level of understanding to macroeconomic issues. I have realized that the key to an in-depth analysis of macro-level issues is micro-studies of local communities; practicum brought us to communities where we did case studies and small research. In our case, the underdevelopment of agriculture sector in District III of Cavite was investigated and the locals, with their vernacular language, discussed how speculative investment, land grabbing, unfair trade and lack of support service create disincentive in farming. This can partly explain why we have country-level low agricultural productivity as revealed by various empirical evidences.

Practicum has been significant to me because it led me closer to social realities – the reality of poverty and inequality. These realities were enough to realize that there really is a need for agents of change and development. The case studies produced in community immersion can be extended into more substantive research work or even an advocacy. My exposure to issues in rural communities remains an inspiration to future research work. The practicum program filled in the shortcoming of the theories. The academe and textbooks cannot solely arm the students with development strategies and solutions; otherwise this development remains academic and moot. Development of practical and actual significance emanates from examination of each community because every community has its peculiarities. This examination is fulfilled by community immersion in practicum program.