Pass land use law
Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said flatlands and arable lands should be off-limits to developers.
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Daily TribunePresidential Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said flatlands and arable lands should be off-limits to developers.
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An unlikely collision recently happened between Senators Raffy Tulfo and Cynthia Villar on an issue that was a tacit taboo in the chamber — land conversion.
Tulfo raised an issue that is mostly spoken at the barbershop or over a cup of coffee but rarely in the Senate.
The neophyte senator hit a raw nerve when he raised the conversion of agricultural land into other uses during the deliberation on the Department of Agriculture's budget.
Tulfo asked a question directed at DA officials regarding what the agency was doing to protect farmlands from being sold to developers who convert these as sites for commercial and residential businesses.
A surprised Villar uttered, "that's our business."
Since there was no question directed at her, Villar's response can be interpreted as an admission to the illegal conversion of arable lands.
Villar incidentally chairs the Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Climate Change which handles the deliberations on the National Land Use Act, which was a priority measure of the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
NLUA or House Bill 5240 was approved by the House of Representatives and transmitted to the Senate way back in the 17th Congress but the measure was stalled in the Senate under Villar's committee.
It was filed again in the 18th Congress still under Villar and nothing transpired.
NLUA would have provided clear parameters on land conversion and thus, limit the capacity of developers to buy up farms for use in their residential projects.
Two other bills — the Sustainable Forest Management Act and the Alternative Minerals Management Act — are related to land conversion and were also stuck in Villar's panel in the previous Congress.
The senator's husband, former Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., is the country's richest man, according to the 2021 Forbes list, and the chairman of Vista Land and Lifescapes, the biggest homebuilder in the Philippines.
Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said flatlands and arable lands should be off-limits to developers.
"Experts know where the fertile lands are. Some flatlands have clay soil or have adobe underneath, these can be converted but those with loam soil are good for rice growing. Land without the possibility of irrigation can also be redeveloped," he said.
Enrile mentioned the projects of San Miguel Corp. in Bulacan as occupying a former farmland and fishing ground, "near the Tenejeros and Tullahan rivers."
SMC was the first to set up a factory in that area which was a brewery, according to Enrile.
"We used to have a fishing ground in that area and I manage it," Enrile related.
Many other similar land areas that used to sustain livelihood and food are now properties of big businesses to keep their cash tills ringing.
The land use measure which is crucial in maintaining the food self-sufficiency program of the government should be freed from the clutches of legislators who have a conflict of interest thus, blocking its progress in Congress.
