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Land conversion unavoidable in growing urban centers

URDANETA CITY (Mar. 4) — An official of the Provincial Office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) disclosed that more tenants working in agricultural areas within city limits might face ejection due to growing demands for real estate developments.

DAR Legal Division Chief Atty. Raul Laluan in an interview said that while tenants who were grabbed of their livelihood suffer, developments would render more benefits to the community.

Land conversion is the act of changing the status of lands from agricultural to non-agricultural manifested widely by mushrooming subdivisions, hotels and golf-courses in developing areas.

Land conversion program of the government has long been promulgated through RA 344 in 1963 in relation to tenants that may be displaced. “But the program has gone full swing juts recently brought about by the demands to develop idle lands in the countryside,” says Laluan.

“Approved conversions must take implementation within five years, should the owner fail to comply, the order for conversion will be reverted to original status,” he said adding, “In case there are tenants displaced, they must be reinstated”.

Before conversion, tenants must be sufficiently paid with disturbance compensation computed through the five year gross harvest,” he added. “In most cases, tenants are paid in advance so when DAR comes into the picture, it is needless to conduct computation”.

He said conversions without the approval of DAR are filed with unauthorized conversion, this way rampant conversions are minimized. Five hectares and below, landowners file for conversion at the Regional Center for Land Use, Planning and Implementation.

Asked if there were conversion as to the case of San Roque Dam, he said, “Technically none because agricultural areas covered by the dam construction were expropriated by Napocor for quarrying for construction materials.”

Laluan said land conversion was controversial in the country particularly to new urban centers such as Urdaneta. Non-negotiable areas designated in Land Use Map are put into conversion when necessity comes, says Laluan.

He cited the case of Wedgewood Subdivision located in Sta. Barbara town where a number of landowners were displaced but Land Co., real estate developer of Wedgewood paid the landowners with the prevailing market price. “Land Co., ‘cleared’ the area before filing for conversion”.

Militant peasant group Timmawa on the other hand, opposes Land Use Conversion program countering that it promotes ‘development aggression against farmers who should own the land they till’.

At the local level, big landowners such as the Gonzales, Lichaucos and Cojuancos fall under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), which supposedly permits small tillers to own a land under the Comprehensive Land Reform Program (CARP). CARP, Timmawa says, is a bogus land reform program being used by big landlords to further take away the right to ownership from small farmers. # Jhong dela Cruz for NORDIS

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