MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 2, 2013) – President Benigno Aquino has finally certified the two-decade old Land Use Bill as urgent, according to the group called Campaign for Land Use Policy Now! The bill aims to ensure Protection Land Use to guarantee that prime agricultural lands will be preserved for the needs of future generations of Filipinos, and to strengthen laws that protect the rights of indigenous peoples in their ancestral lands, among others.
It also mandates the creation of geo-hazard map that will identify disaster-prone areas in the country for use in land utilization planning and disaster prevention programs.
Anthony Marzan, convener of the Campaign for Land Use Policy Now! (CLUP Now!), said the bill will provide for a rational, holistic and just management and allocation of the country’s land resources and the introduction of land and physical planning as proper mechanisms for determining appropriate land use would promote sustainable economic and social growth without compromising environmental integrity and stability.
Aquino certified the bill following continuous lobbying of civil society and peoples’ organizations.
Senate Bill No. 3091 or the National Land Use Policy Act (NLUA) sponsored by Senator Gregorio Honasan was one of the 35 bills pending due to the controversies that took much of the Senate’s time after the resumption of the session on January 21.
“We thank the President for the Certification for a very important Bill that would define the country’s sustainable and just allocation of our natural resources. We now challenge both Houses of Congress to pass the NLUA,” Marzan said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
The NLUA was first filed in 1994 during the 9th Congress. After more than two decades, House Bill 6545 or the National Land Use and Management Act, finally passed on the third and final reading in the Lower House last September 2012.
It now awaits approval on Third Reading in the Senate and finally, its ratification before the 3rd regular session of the 15th Congress adjourns.
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