Planned moratorium on land conversion under review

The National Economic and Development Authority is reviewing the proposal to give the Office of the President the power to determine which government projects would be exempted from the planned ban on farmland conversion.

In a statement, the agency said the Neda Board’s land use committee was looking into the revised draft executive order being pushed by the Department of Agrarian Reform which, if signed by President Duterte, would impose a two-year moratorium on the conversion of agricultural lands.

According to Neda, a new provision in the draft EO sought to allow the Office of the President “to exempt certain government projects for energy development, socialized housing, economic zone development, tourism zone development and other necessary infrastructure projects from the moratorium.”

In October, the Neda and the departments of budget and management, finance, trade and industry, and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council had opposed the draft EO. They said a moratorium on the conversion of agricultural land into non-agricultural uses “can have adverse impacts on agriculture sector revitalization, meeting the housing backlog, accelerating infrastructure development, and other economic activities which are on expansionary mode.”

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia had said that while economic managers were “one with DAR in finding ways to address the country’s food security concern, food security has to be met through some other means.

“When applications for conversion to agro-industrial use are denied, land requirements of agriculture-based processing and manufacturing activities may not be met,” Pernia, who is also the Neda chief, said.

“Paradoxically, agriculture sector revitalization may suffer under this policy, which purports to protect that sector in the first place. When the applications for conversion to agro-industrial use are denied, the land requirements of agriculture-based processing and manufacturing activities may not be met,” the five agencies had said in a position paper.

The five agencies had hence instead urged the expansion of agriculture-based processing and manufacturing not only for the domestic market but also for export.

Moving forward, “the legislature should enact a national land use code covering not only land use conversion regulation but also effective land administration, such as timely titling of lands and taxing idle lands sufficiently so that owners will put them to appropriate uses,” according to the position paper.

Besides the issue on agricultural land conversion, the Neda Board’s land use committee, in a meeting last month, had also agreed to review the so-called National Spatial Strategy (NSS), which proposed to establish a transport network that would connect four metropolitan centers with regional and sub-regional centers.

“It is important to improve the mobility of Filipinos by enhancing connectivity between urban centers and marginalized areas. With improved connectivity, linking jobs and people can be done more efficiently,” Pernia said. BEN O. DE VERA