Palace word on land conversion ban awaited

President Duterte will have the fi­nal say on the proposed two-year moratorium on the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricul­tural uses that has split some influ­ential members of his Cabinet.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia, who is among those opposed to the plan being espoused by Agrarian Re­form Secretary Rafael Mariano and Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, said a position paper oppos­ing the moratorium was already with the President.

The Agrarian Reform and Agriculture departments pro­posed the two-year moratorium to preserve prime agricultur­al lands to ensure food security. On the sidelines of the Philip­pine Business Conference and Expo (PBCE) in Pasay City last Thursday, Pernia said the position paper was signed by Vice President Maria Le­onor Robredo, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, Budget Secre­tary Benjamin Diokno, Trade Sec­retary Ramon Lopez, and himself. The Vice President urged Mr. Duterte to disapprove the pro­posed moratorium, as it would “further delay the housing and re­settlement processes.”

“By unnecessarily lock­ing up the land resources for two years, including those that were already identified as suit­able for socialized housing, this will make our mission far more difficult in solving the grow­ing problem of homelessness,” the Vice President, who is also head of the Housing and Ur­ban Development Coordinat­ing Council (HUDCC), said. “It’s going to be problem­atic for infrastructure projects because infrastructure projects require the use of land and also housing,” said Pernia, who is also the director general of the National Economic and De­velopment Authority (Neda). “Also, much of so-called agricultural areas are not suit­able for any crops.”

The business commu­nity had earlier opposed the proposed moratorium, noting that it would set back goals to develop economic zones and spur growth in rural areas. “The business commu­nity is fully supportive of the position taken by Neda,” said Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry president George Barcelon. Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Com­mittee on Energy, also urged DAR to reconsider its morato­rium proposal.

He said it would be detri­mental to the construction of much-needed energy genera­tion projects.

Gatchalian said pow­er plants and other ener­gy-generation projects take up substantial tracts of land, many of which are built on converted agricultural land. He said the moratorium would affect the renewable-en­ergy sector because certain types of such projects require significantly larger areas of land to produce the same amount of energy as con­ventional coal and oil plants. Gatchalian cited as an example solar-energy farms that would need at least one hectare of solar panels to pro­duce 1 megawatt of electricity. “The Department of Agrarian Reform’s proposed conversion ban would be detri­mental to the stability and sus­tainability of our country’s en­ergy supply,” Gatchalian said. “The moratorium would severely impede our country’s ability to meet future energy demand by bringing the con­struction of new energy gener­ation projects to a standstill.

The economic con­sequence of continuing instability in our energy supply is something we sim­ply cannot afford. NAPC, PCUP back moratorium The heads of the Presiden­tial and Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) and the National Anti-Poverty Com­mission (NAPC), howev­er, are supporting the land conversion moratorium.

“Only large real-estate de­velopers and multinationals stand to gain from a reversal of the President’s moratorium on the land use conversion of agricultural lands,” PCUP Chairman Terry Ridon said. Ridon, who sits in the HUDCC, said the remedy was not to stop the morato­rium altogether but to con­sider socialized housing proj­ects as exceptions to the ban.

“Change will not come to our agricultural farmers if we insist that food securi­ty and social justice should suffer at the whims of re­al-estate moguls and mul­tinationals,” Ridon said. Ridon said real-estate ty­coons should not hide behind the need for massive socialized housing for the urban poor. “The Vice President is correct that homelessness is a persistent problem for the urban poor.

But we should remember that the status quo has prevented many agricul­tural lands from being used for socialized housing, as well. We believe that socialized housing, as the only exception to the moratorium, would balance the benefits between the rural and urban poor,” Ridon added. Ridon said the main problem in agrarian re­form was the dizzying pace of land-use conversions for other uses, to the exclusion of the poor Filipino farmer.

“In the main, land-use conversions were made not for socialized housing but for the construction of provincial malls, golf courses, residen­tial subdivisions and resorts.” NAPC Secretary Liza Maza also denounced as “hypocritical” the appeal made by real-estate develop­ers and big business groups, citing the homeless poor as reason to the proposed two-year moratorium.

“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. Maza said that while the 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.

“Over the years, this forced migration has bloated the urban population and cre­ated the crisis in housing that we have today,” Masa said. Citing Neda figures, she 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. LUIS LEONCIO