Measure on PH land use pushed
Credit to Author: ANNA LEAH E. GONZALES| Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2019 16:17:51 +0000
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is hoping that the National Land Use Act (NaLUA), which seeks to harmonize sector-specific land use policies and institutionalize land use planning, will be passed in the 18th Congress.
“Having a comprehensive land use policy can lead to better landscapes for the next generation. We need a NaLUA in the Philippines in order to curtail the adverse effects of the improper land use planning and management,” NEDA Undersecretary for Regional Development Adoracion Navarro said at The Manila Times Philippine Model Cities and Municipalities forum at the New World Manila Bay Hotel on Wednesday.
“In general, the effect of improper land use planning and management is uncoordinated and unsustainable use of the country’s land, which is manifested by urban sprawl or uncontrolled development that encroaches on agricultural land, thereby endangering our food security, and also encroaches on other fragile areas,” she explained.
Navarro admitted that while several bills on national land use have been filed, none of them hurdled the final approval stage.
“In the 17th Congress, it was passed at the Lower House, but not discussed in the Senate,” she said. “The major concern in the Senate is we were not even given the chance to be heard. It wasn’t scheduled for deliberation in the 17th Congress, so hopefully with [a] greater push this time around, we will have a schedule for deliberations so that we will know what are the senators’ concerns and address them,” she added.
So far, 12 NaLUA bills have been filed in the House of Representatives and four in the Senate in the current Congress.
“Since we felt last year that we will be having a hard time pushing for NaLUA at the Senate by December [last year], we were already conducting land use policy coversations with the objective of sort of coming up with an executive version of the NaLUA bill, something that we can feed to the 18th Congress,” said Navarro.
Among the salient points of the draft of the NEDA Board’s National Land Use Committee are the establishment of an institutional mechanism (National Land Use Council and Regional/Provinvial/City/Municipal Land Use
Policy Committee), which will integrate efforts related to land use, land use development and management, as well as resolve land use conflicts; formulating, reviewing, adopting, and approving of physical framework and land use plans both at the national and local levels; and providing major considerations and parameters on land use planning.
The draft also seeks to identify and describe areas of special concerns and provides guidelines and prerequisites for their proper and rational delineation; mandates the inclusion of sustainable land use education; and provides sanctions and penalties for land use-related violations.
“As of today, no public consultations on the NaLUA, both at the Senate and Lower House, has been conducted by the legislators, but we have presented this to the Cabinet and the President reaffirmed his strong support on this, but he asked that further consultations with government agencies be done,” said Navarro.