The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Secretary Liza Maza denounced as “hypocritical” the appeal made by real-estate developers and big business groups citing the homeless poor as reason to block a two-year ban on the conversion of agricultural lands.
“These big business groups should not pit poor informal settlers against poor farmers, just to protect the interests of unscrupulous realty developers that have colluded with landlord-oligarchs to subvert genuine agrarian reform. This is the height of hypocrisy,” Maza said.
Last September, a proposed executive order (EO) for a moratorium on land-use conversion resulted from a meeting of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) in Malacañang. The EO drafted by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) will cover agricultural lands under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, Presidential Decree 27 and other land reform policies.
After the announcement of the outcome of the PARC meeting by DAR Sec.retary Rafael Mariano, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) circulated a petition which stated that a moratorium could worsen the prevailing housing backlog in the country.
Maza stressed that while NAPC welcomes the effort of private entities to venture into mass-housing projects for the poor, it is a fact that many of these low-cost housing projects are anti-poor.
“The same is true for many government housing projects. How many times have informal settlers been relocated to housing sites that have no electricity, no water, and no livelihood opportunities? And to think that these housing-relocation sites stand on agrarian reform lands that have been unjustly taken from farmer-tenants which makes it a double burden to the poor,” Maza added.
The NAPC secretary further said that the massive conversion of agricultural lands in the rural areas has forced the migration of rural farming families to the urban areas in search of livelihood.
She added that, “over the years, this forced migration has bloated the urban population and created the crisis in housing that we have today.”
Citing Neda figures, Maza said that there are around 26 million Filipinos currently living on less than P61 a day and can spend approximately 2.2 percent to 6 percent of their income on housing. The relatively cheaper options for resettlement off-city can charge up to P600 a month per unit.
Maza added that anyone traversing the North to South Expressways will see houses and even posh subdivisions standing on what were once prime agricultural lands. “The lands were converted, depriving the farmers. The houses and subdivisions are so expensive, they are beyond the reach of the poor,” Maza said.