LAMP addresses land administration issues

Bago namatay ang asawa ko, ang sabi niya ay patuloy kong ipaglaban ang aming lupa (before my husband died, he said I must fight for our land)," Aling Aning said while showing the title to the land the couple bought with their hard-earned money. The family was shocked when three other families each holding a title to the same property are claiming their land. Since then, she has shed buckets of tears as she continues to go through many sleepless nights.

This is one of the thousands of cases encountered in land ad-ministration and management. Through the Land Administra-tion and Management Program (LAMP) under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the poor or the rich who find themselves in the same situation hope that resolution is at hand especially with the legal backing of the pending Land Administration Reform Act (LARA).

"Land has to be adminis-tered and managed efficiently, transparently and equitably in order to meet the basic needs of our citizens and ensure econo-mic prosperity," Environment and Natural Resources Secreta-ry Angelo Reyes said at the re-cent high level policy forum on land administration.

"We have to confront certain issues," he added as he under-scored the need for a strong leadership in the land adminis-tration and management sector services, among others.

The systemic inefficiencies in the process of land registration and titling is one serious prob-lem. Justice Oswaldo D. Agca-oili noted in his paper Land Conflicts and Cases: Issues of Tenure Security in the Philip-pines that fake titles and the double sale of the same prope-rty has given rise to conflicting claims of ownership, as in the case of Aling Aning.

Another issue is the conflicting policies, procedures, processes and accountabilities of several agencies involved in land administration and man-agement.

"There are two agencies authorized to approve subdivision surveys for titling purposes, namely, the Land Management Bureau (LMB) and the Land Registration Authority (LRA). If the survey plan is not approved by the LMB, the party could seek LRA approval. The latter may approve it without being privy to why the former disapproved it in the first place," Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association past national president Jaime Cura said. In cases where title con-flicts develop, Cura and other industry players like him won-der whose rules or expert opin-ion will prevail.

Due to lack of a proper land administration and manage-ment system, land records are scattered in various agencies as well as among the regional units of these agencies. It is compoun-ded by missing, corrupted or incomplete land records. Industry players are told the situation is mainly due to lack of budgetary support. For a prospective land buyer or a potential investor, the condition makes it very difficult and expensive to validate the authenticity of a land title.

Fragmented accountabilities and the dismal state of land re-cords provide an ideal situation for syndicates to produce fake records and spurious titles. Even some banks have been victimized despite diligent investigation of titles used as collateral. Billions of pesos have been lost to these syndicates.

While recognizing the de-fects in the land registration system as a great challenge demanding immediate solution and political will, LAMP has adopted a number of strategic directions.

These include the promotion of effective and efficient map-ping, survey, valuation, titling and registration of lands; adop-tion of policies and programs to accelerate land titling and registration of public alienable and disposal lands; streamlining of services through the establishment of one-stop shops nationwide; and the establishment of an administrative system to cancel duplicate and fake land titles. Also, all existing land administration laws and policies will be consolidated and rationalized. On the other hand, records management will be revamped for compatibility and reduction of duplication.