Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
Second Regular Session

HOUSE BILL No. 5563

INTRODUCED BY ANAKPAWIS PARTY-LIST REPRESENTATIVE
FERNANDO L. HICAP

EXPLANATORY NOTE

In the last two decades, the government ha tematically and
aggressively carried out the redisposition of the country’s agricultural lands
along the thrust of economic liberalization. Liberalization, as imposed by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and later, the World Trade Organization
(WTO) and other similar “free trade agreements” (FTAs), has been intended
to open new areas for loca! and foreign investments supposedly in order to
wean the economy away from agriculture dependence and place it on track
toward a private sector-led and export-oriented “industrialization.”!

Pursuing such direction, the government over the years has rolled out
one development blueprint after another that built on and exponentially
expanded the World bank-inspired concept of integrated-area development
(IAD), a land use plan model that was first applied in the country at the
outset of the Marcos regime’s “export processing zones” and Green
Revolution. Going by different catch-phrases - “industrial corridor” during
the time of Cory Aquino, “growth arcas” under Ramos, “strategic agriculture
and fisheries development zones” and “regional industrial centers” under
Estrada, “super regions” under Arroyo, and the “public-private partnership”
program areas of the current Aquino administration — these development

* The development trajectory pursued in the post-Marcos period was actually the second stage of
implementation of the “export-oriented industrialization” platform was started during the early years of the
Marcos dictatorship but sputtered in implementation as the dictator lost popular support. For instance, the
First Calabarzon Project was actually first hatched in the late 1970s. It was implemented by the Cory Aquino
regime retaining about 90% of its component projects.


blueprints nonetheless all share in one basic orientation: disposing the
country’s land resources for the purpose of attracting local and foreign
investments.

The scope of land redisposition or land use conversion has become
more expansive with each development model as seen in the trend of
integrating whole provinces and even regions in the indiscriminate allocation
of thousands of hectares of land. For the First Calabarzon Project, for
example, 900,000 hectares of agricultural and public lands have already
been converted or are still under threat of conversion where farmers and
fisherfolk communities are engaged in agrarian conflicts with landlords
turned-land developers.

In 2013 alone, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has
approved 1,023 conversion applications involving a total of 35,932 hectares
of land spread in every region of the country, with regions IV-A, Ill and VI
having the highest number of converted hectarage.

Such surge of wholesale reclassification of agricultural lands, from the
national level down to local government units, has effectively forced open the
country’s land resources to local and foreign investments in commerce, real
estate, eco-tourism and other non-productive enterprises. The policies and
rules on land use have consequently been relaxed or deferred to discharge
the lands from their actual agricultural use and tenure, enhance their
commodification prospect, and facilitate the unimpeded penetration of
investments. In addition, laws have also been passed to circumvent
structural restrictions against the entry of foreign investments into our
agriculture.? This has likewise empowered speculators, land hoarders and
“buccaneers” of the local land market and real estate industry, to prey on

the possessions of small farmers and even agrarian reform beneficiaries in
an unprecedented wave of land accumulation.
‘The extensive conversion of farmlands for non-agricultural purposes

has invariably led to the cancellation of Certificates of Land Ownership
Award (CLOA) and Emancipation Patents (EP) of thousands of peasants and
their eviction from their places of livelihood. According to [BON Foundation,
as of December 2006, 5,049 EPs and 103,092 CLOAs have been cancelled
involving 204,579 hectares of land, CLOA and EP cancellation increased by
3,890 percent from the 1995 figure of 2,780 while hectares of land involved

* Foremost of these laws is the Foreign investors Land Lease Act which gives foreign investors the right to lease
public agricultural lands for a period of SO years and renewable for another 25 years. The law, authored by
then Sen. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was passed in 1994


increased by 1,162 percent from 16,213 hectares. Moreover, there are at
present some 50,000 cases pending before the DAR in connection with the
unmitigated incidents of CLOA and EP cancellation as a result of the

alarming nationwide rate of land use conversion

Land use conversion ultimately is a grave threat to the country’s food
security as it continues to significantly reduce the size of land available for
rice and other agricultural production. Between 1991 and 2002, total
national farm area hectarage has dramatically shrunked by 304,078
hectares, In Cavite alone, from 1983 to 1989, the number of hectares of
rice lands decreased from 14,710 to 12,800. Prime rice lands that once lined
both sides of the highways going to Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog
have practically been erased in just a matter of four years (1990-1994)
because of land conversion, Even the highly irrigated rice lands have not
been spared to give way to non-productive projects that have narrow and
short-term benefits such as real estate “developments” that mainly serve the
luxuries of the clite.

Consequently, the country, an otherwise rice-producing nation, has
had to increase its rice importation requirements to the further detriment of
the local producers. In 1996, rice imports volume started climbing to 1
million metric ton (MT) a year. It reached the 2 million MT mark in 1998
when the country experienced “El Nino.” It went down to the vicinity of
700,000 MT a year between 1999 and 2002, but between 2002 and 2008, it
hovered at 1.1 million MT a year. For 2014, the present government has said
that the country needs to import at least 1.7 MT.

As a national phenomenon, land use conversion first conquered the
agricultural plains given its relatively advantageous topography for real
estate projects and its proximity and accessibility to urban-based facilities.
Yet even before the plains had all been exhausted, the prototypical
Calabarzon Project had already been replicated in the other regions of the
country, with some projects reaching watershed areas and laying siege on
previously untouched ecosystems all in the name of “eco-tourism.” While the
government and real estate investors have been hailing the dawning in the
country of a “real estate boom,” the Filipino farmers on the other hand have
been decrying the rapid shrinking of prime agricultural lands and the loss of
their farms and livelihood.

According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), over 800,000
hectares of lands have already been converted to other uses since 1972. It
can be fairly estimated that about three-fourth of this figure were converted

during the post-Marcos implementation of the “export-oriented
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industrialization” program. This can very well mean, on the equation that a
hectare can employ 4-5 farm workers, that 2 to 3 million jobs and livelihood
in agriculture have already been lost. And if the average landholding is 3
hectares, it can be concluded that some 200,000 displaced ts
been added to the landless rural population due to land conversion
exacerbating thereby the problem of landlessness in the countryside

ners have

The loss of employment and livelihood and the landlessness that land
use conversion has left in its wake have immensely aggravated inequality in
the country and have easily offset and reversed previous attempts to attain
social justice for the poor, While landlords and real estate companies have
been sharing in the lucrative profit windfall from the “real estate boom,” the
dispossessed farmers have become poorer and more vulnerable to the
violence of poverty and hunger. Land distribution has been shunted aside as
land use conversion has overran areas cither covered by agrarian reform or
previously won by farmers through quasi-legal struggle

Moreover, the loss of our prime agricultural lands to land use
conversion has been a factor to the further weakening and deterioration of
our agriculture, It has wasted away the most productive lands, driving the
dispossessed farmers to marginal areas of the hinterlands. This has in fact
added greater pressure to the country’s depleting land resources. It has also
driven farmers out of agriculture. Since land use conversion is a threat to
the security of tenure of farmers and their farms, it has exacerbated the
insecurities and risks attendant to government's all-out liberalization ol
agriculture.

Land use conversion in the last two decades has not brought our
country any closer to industrialization. Many of the projects that were put
up have generally been speculative and, therefore, non-productive. Most of
these projects have been golf courses, so-called “self-contained
communities” with hotels and supermalls as their core, recreation and
vacation get-away complexes and high-end residential enclaves that cater to
the elite, Given such wasteful disposition of our land resources, its trade-
offs have been very costly. While the “real estate boom” displaced thousands
of farmers, it employed little from among our large technical labor forc
absorbed almost nothing from the displaced laboring force in agriculture

si

and

The “estate bubble” channeled investments away from real
production, It is interesting to note that during the peak of the “real estate
bubble” (1992-1997), industrial output declined, indicating that whatever
growth the country attained from the “boom” was as hollow as it was
unproductive. The projects of the “real estate bubble” being driven by

4


speculation and fund leveraging, their stocks and added value were blown
out of their real worth so much so that the “bubble” proved to be the
tinderbox for the implosion in the country of the financial crisis that
engulfed Asia in 1997. Add to this the fact that the unabated contraction of
agricultural lands has directly been undermining the country’s food security
and clearly it can be said that land use conversion has severely affected the
health of the entire economy itself.

One recent example of the debilitating effects of land use conversion to
agriculture and to peasant communities is the current plight of farmers in
Hacienda Yulo, Barangay Canlubang in Calamba, Laguna. Thousands of
farmers are now being threatened with displacement and ejectment due
mainly to the conversion of around 7,000 hectares of agricultural land in
Hacienda Yulo. Land use conversion is likewise being s
the growing threat to the livelihood and settlement of peasant and Ayta
communities found in the 36,000-hectare Clark Green City Project in the
provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga

nas the cause of

Land is a finite resource. On this ground alone, its use must be
regulated. But what adds urgency to put well defined control over the
disposition of land resources is the fact that our country had reached the
end of its land frontier as early as the 1960s, The country no longer has the
capacity to expand nor the luxury to fritter our lands away to unwise and
and even harmful use

Previously filed in the Fifteenth Congress on September, 2010, by then
Anakpawis Representative Rafael Mariano, this bill is being refiled with the
original intent and purpose of preventing the unbridled abuse of our land
resources by landlords and speculators to the detriment of our agriculture
and our small farmers. The bill seeks the prohibition of conversion into
other uses of our prime agricultural lands and the strict delineation of the
conditions under which the conversion of non-prime agricultural lands may
be allowed.

‘The prohibition part of the bill aims to put a stop to the decimation of
our prime agricultural lands as a way of protecting our agriculture and our
farmers as well as the environment, In so doing, it is hoped also that we can
reverse the slide toward total food insecurity



The regulation part, on the other hand, aims to ensure that the land
use conversion of non-prime agricultural lands will not affect the economic
viability and sustainability of prime agricultural lands. It also aims to
ensure that land use conversion will not disturb peace of our peasant
communities and will not violate the tenure of our farmers over their farms
It is hoped that through such regulation, our country can have its desired
development without displacing large section of our population

It is, therefore earnestly requested that this bill be urgently approved.

FERNANDO /HICAP


Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
Second Regular Session

HOUSE BILL No, 9963

INTRODUCED BY ANAKPAWIS PARTY-LIST REPRESENTATIVE
FERNANDO L. HICAP

AN ACT
PROHIBITNG THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY THE CONVERSION OF
PRIME AGRICULTURAL LANDS INTO OTHER USES AND REGULATING
THE CONVERSION OF NON-PRIME AGRICULTURAL LANDS AND
PROIVIDING PENALITIES FOR VIOLATIONS THEREFOR AND FOR
OTHER PURPOSES

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in
Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. Title. - This Act s
Prohibition Act of 2014”,

hall be known as the “Land Use Conversion

SECTION 2. State Policies and Principles. The State realizes tha! the land
ious threat to the sustainability of a primarily
curity of our country, It ha

ly

use conversion is a
agricultural economy as well as the food s
displaced farmers and destroyed their livelihood which immens
contributed to the increase of landlessness and unemployment in the
countryside. It has disrupted, if not defiled, the ccologicel ce of our
environment which has an impact on local climate change and imminent
water crisis

The State also realizes that agricultural lands are the primary means of
livelihood of seventy percent (70%) of our population. Land is a finite
must be regulated to prevent the depletion of our

resource whose us
agricultural lands, attain efficient and wise use of our land resources and

achieve balanced growth in agriculture and industry


It is the policy of the State to preserve and conserve our agricultural lands.
Toward this end, the State shall regulate land use conversion to resuscitate
the sustainability of our agriculture, prevent the total loss of our food
security, protect our ecology and environment and promote industrial
development without displacing our farmers and destroying their livelihood

SECTION 3. Definition of terms. For the purpose of this Act, the following
terms were defined as

a, Agricultural lands refer to lands, regardless of classification, that
are devoted to agricultural production and such othe
with agriculture such as cattle and livestock farms
including foreshore, pasture farms, and lands that are agricultural in
dominant use or with the potential for agricultural use;

uses connected
aquaculture,

b. Biodiversity refers to the variation of life forms within a given
ecosystem of an area;

c. Crop conversion refers to the change in the devotion of an
agricultural land from one crop to another (as for example, from rice
to cauliflower or banana);

d, Ecological habitat refers to an ecological or environmental area
that is inhabited by a particular species of animal, plant or another
type of organism;

€. Irrigation refers to the system and infrastructure of supplying
water to cultivated agricultural lands, It includes natural irrigation
systems that can be had from lakes, rivers, rivulets, streams,
waterfalls, springs, and rainfall;

f. Land use conversion refers to the act of changing the current use
of a piece of agricultural land into some other use;

g. Non-prime agricultural land refers to lands whose suitability to
agricultural production or use is below the average 3.0 grade of the
combined factors of soil fertility, climate, biodiversity, terrain,
irrigation and other infrastructure development;

h. Prime agricultural land sclers to lands whose suitability for
agricultural production or use has an average 3.0 grade or above of
8


the combined factors of soil fertility, climate, biodiversity, terrain,

irrigation and other infrastructure development;

i, Reclassification refers to the act of specifying how agricultural
lands shall be utilized for non-agricultural uses, as embodied in the
land use plan, subject to the requirements and procedures for land
use conversion.

SECTION 4, National survey to delineate prime agricultural lands from
non-prime agricultural lands, ‘Yo implement the mandate of this Act, the
Department of Agriculture (henceforth, the department) shall conduct a
national survey to delineate prime agricultural lands from non-prime
agricultural lands in accordance with the definitions of this Act. The
National Mapping and Research Information Authority (NAMRIA) will also be
involved in the national survey. The survey shall be completed within six (6)
months after the effectivity of this Act.

SECTION 5. Formula for determining prime agricultural lands and non-
prime agricultural lands. The survey to be conducted by the Depai
shall determine agricultural lands whether they are prime or non-prin
grading such lands on a scale of 1 to 10 according to the factors of soil
fertility, climate, biodiversity, terrain, irrigation and other infrastructure
development. The grade for each factor shall then be cumulatively averaged
Agricultural lands with a median grade of 3.0 and above shall be categorized
as prime agricultural lands while agricultural lands with a median grade of
below 3.0 shall be considered non-prime

ment

2 by

SECTION 6. Segregation of prime agricultural lands. In the conduct of
the survey mentioned in Section 4, prime agricultural lands
mance as reserved for

ituated within

zones or areas di

ared by any law or executive
specific purposes, such as, but not limited to, special economic zones,
tourism zones, human settlements, military reservations, campus sites, and
the likes or otherwise covered by reclassification ordinance, zoning
ordinance or land used plans of local government units, where such lands
have remained agricultural in actual use or undeveloped in the last three (3)
years regardless of any reason, shall be segregated from the portion of the
reservations actually developed or used for the specific purpose for which
they have been reserved by law, executive issuance or reclassification
ordinance /zoning ordinance/land use pla

SECTION 7. Strict prohibition of land use conversion of prime
agricultural lands. The conversion of prime agricultural lands to other
9


uses shall be strictly prohibited until Congress has enacted a national land
use plan

SECTION 8. Strict prohibition of other non-prime agricultural lands.
Until Congress has enacted a national land use plan, the conversion of non-
hall also be strictly prohibited in the

prime agricultural lands to other use:
following instances:

a, where the non-prime agricultural lands have been devoted to the
production of rice, corn and other staple food of the community;

b, where the non-prime agricultural lands have been occupied and
made productive for at least three (3) years by settlers, tiller-
occupants or farmers; and

c. where the non-prime agricultural lands are the host of watershed
areas

SECTION 9. Prohibition of destruction of the ecological habitat of
agricultural lands. It is likewise strictly prohibited of any person to
perform such acts that cause the diminution of the economic viability or
productivity of prime agricultural lands, or such acts that destroy or
undermine the sustainability of production in prime agricultural lands,
including the destruction of their ecological habitat, Such acts include the
following:

a. destroying water systems, whether natural or man-made, or
diverting or impeding their flow that causes prime agricultural lands
to lose their sources of irrigation, making it appear that the affected
lands are no longer economically viable:

b. large-scale cutting of trees that destroys the biodiversity of prime
agricultural lands;

c. quarrying that will have the same effect of destroying the
biodiversity of prime agricultural lands;

d. contaminating the water systems that irrigate prime agricultu
lands with mercury and similar harmful elements or chemicals; and

e, failure to prevent the spill of mine wastes to prime agricultural
lands
10


SECTION 10. Regulating the conversion of non-prime agricultural
lands. If the agricultural land is non-prime and not suffering from any of
tion 8, the land maybe converted to other

the instances mentioned in 8
uses subject to the following requisites and conditions:

a, The conversion is for the construction of public schools, housing
projects of the National Housing Authority, or public works that
primarily serve agricultural production such as farm-to-market roads
bridges, irrigation, public markets, public warehouses for agricultural
products, and similar public pury

b. The conversion shall not affect or interfere into the natural rhythm
and cycle of the biodiversity of the entire environment of the area; and

c, The conversion shall not diminish the productivity and the
suitability for agricultural use of prime agricultural lands within the
vicinity of the project.

SECTION 11, Disapproval by law of all pending applications for land
use conversion. All applications for land use conversion authority, prime
agricultural lands already filed with the proper office of the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) but not yet acted upon as of December 31, 2013 are
hereby declared disapproved by this Act. The lands covered by the
disapproval shall automatically revert to agricultural ¢

ification

As to applications for land use conversion authority over non-prime
agricultural lands already filed with the proper office of the DAR as of
December 31 ,2013, such applications shall be acted upon in accordance
with sections B and 10 of this Act

SECTION 12. Revocation of approved land use conversion authority for
undeveloped projects. All approved land use conversion authorities over
agricultural lands covered by Sections by 8 to 10 but whose development
projects have not started or with portions that have remained undeveloped
as of December 31, 2013 are hereby declared revoked by this Act. Such
lands or their undeveloped portion shall automatically revert to agricultural
classification

SECTION 13, Lands under disapproved or revoked land use conversion
authority to be distributed to farmers. All agricultural lands whose

1


conversion authority has been disapproved or revoked shall be turned over
to the DAR for distribution to qualified farmer-beneficiaries.

SECTION 14. Development requirement before another reclassification
by local government units. Local government units shall not enact a new
land use plan, zoning ordinance or another reclassification of agricultural
lands unless four-fifth (4/5) of the lands previously reclassified has been
developed.

SECTION 15. Land reclassification review mechanism. When a local
government unit reclassifies non-prime agricultural lands, it shall create a
Task Force for the purpose of reviewing the proposed reclassification. The
Task Force shall be composed of the following:

a. representative from the farmers’ sector;
b. representative from the Barangay Agrarian Reform council

c. representative from the irrigators' association;

d. representative from the local government unit:

e. representative from the National Irrigation Authority (NIA);

f. representative from the National Food Authority (NIA); and

g. representative from the civil society and other civic organizations.

The Task Force shall ensure consultation and public hearings. No
reclassification of rice lands shall be made by local government units
without the recommendation of the task Force.

SECTION 17. Penalties. Any person found to have violated the provisions of
this Act shall be punished with an imprisonment of not less than six (6)
years and a fine of not less than One Hundred Fifty Thousand Pesos
(P150,000.00) but not more than Three Hundred Thousand Pesos
(P300,000.00).

If the conversion has been completed or irreversible, the building or
infrastructure shall be confiscated by the State. The confiscated property
shall be turned over to the local government with jurisdiction for public usi
or for public auction.

If the violator of this Act is a corporation, partnership, or any other juridical
entity, the penal provisions hereof shall be applied to the president or chief
executive officer of the corporation, the managing partner in the case of
partnership or the equivalent head in the case of any juridical entity or any
other person acting in their behalf. In the case of corporations, the

12



ponsible for the

slude the manager of the department

indictment shall ir
construction or conversion

If the violator is a government official, he/she shall suffer the additional
penalty of permanent disqualification employment in the government
or any of its subdivisions, instrumentality, or government-owned or

controlled corporations,

Any person who evicts a farmer tilling an agricultural land to make it appear
that the land has no present tiller or occupant or who changes the crop of
the land to make it appear that the land is not devoted to rive, corn and
other staple food shall be punished with an imprisonment of not less than
one (1) year but not more than three (3) years

SECTION 18. Implementing Rules and Regulation. Within thirty (30) days
after the effectivity of this Act, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), in
consultation with the Department of Agriculture (DA} and the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), shall issue the Implementing
Rules and Regulation of this Act.

SECTION 19. Suppletory Application. All previous or existing laws,
decrees, executive orders, rules and regulations, and other issuances
consistent with this Act shall have suppletory effect

SECTION 20. Repealing Clause. All previous or existing laws, decrees
executive orders, rules and regulations or parts thereof inconsistent with
this Act are hereby repealed or amended accordingly.

SECTION 21. Separability Clause. \i, tor any reason, any section or
provision of this Act is declared null and void, no othe jon, or
part thereof shall be affected and the same shall remain in full force and
effect

section, provis

SECTION 22. Effectivity Clause. This Act shall take effect immediately after
publication in at least two (2) national newspapers of general circulation

Approved

13