By Dona Pazzibugan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court has upheld the temporary ban imposed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) two years ago on the further conversion of agricultural lands for commercial uses in order to protect the country's dwindling rice lands for agriculture and agrarian reform.
In a ruling issued last June 18, the Supreme Court's First Division unanimously agreed that DAR was right to impose a moratorium at the time when the country was caught in a global rice shortage crisis.
The high court dismissed the petition filed by the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations (CREBA), an umbrella organization of about 3,500 companies and individuals in the real estate business, questioning Memorandum No. 88 issued by former agrarian secretary Nasser Pangandaman on April 15, 2008.
In that memorandum, the DAR secretary temporarily suspended the processing and approval of all land use conversion applications nationwide due to public alarm that the unabated conversion of rice lands for housing projects has worsened the country's dependence on rice imports.
CREBA claimed DAR suspended land use conversion without any basis.
But the Supreme Court declared that CREBA's argument that the memorandum was unconstitutional “stands on hollow ground.”
“It bears emphasis that said Memorandum No. 88 was issued upon the instruction of the President (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) in order to address the unabated conversion of prime agricultural lands for real estate development because of the worsening rice shortage in the country at that time,” the Supreme Court said through Associate Justice Jose Perez.
“Such measure was made in order to ensure that there are enough agricultural lands in which rice cultivation and production may be carried into. The issuance of said Memorandum No. 88 was made pursuant to the general welfare of the public, thus it cannot be argued that it was made without any basis,” it continued.
Other members of the First Division who concurred with the decision were Chief Justice Renato Corona and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and Mariano Del Castillo.
In the same ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed DAR’s “exclusive authority” to decide on applications for the conversion of agricultural lands to residential, commercial and industrial uses.
The high tribunal set aside CREBA's claim that the DAR Administrative Order 01-02 issued on Feb. 28, 2002 by then agrarian reform secretary Hernani Braganza was not valid.
In that AO 01-02, the DAR laid down rules to regulate the conversion of agricultural lands to non-agricultural use and to identify lands that were wrongly exempted from coverage of the agrarian reform law.
DAR declared that agricultural lands covered by agrarian reform are those that were “not reclassified as residential, commercial, industrial or other non-agricultural uses” before June 15, 1988 when Republic Act 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law took effect.
CREBA insisted that DAR had no authority to expand the legal definition of the term “agricultural lands” through an administrative order.
But the Supreme Court claimed that DAR only “made clear what are the lands that can be the subject of DAR’s conversion authority, thus serving the very purpose of the land use conversion provisions of RA 6657.”
This means that any reclassification of agricultural lands made after June 15, 1998 required DAR's clearance for conversion.
“Having recognized the DAR’s conversion authority over lands reclassified after 15 June 1988, it can no longer be argued that the secretary of agrarian reform was wrongfully given the authority and power to include ‘lands not reclassified as residential, commercial, industrial or other non-agricultural uses before 15 June 1988’ in the definition of agricultural lands,” the high court said.
It reiterated a previous ruling recognizing the agrarian secretary’s “exclusive authority” to classify and identify lands either for conversion or for agrarian reform coverage.
Conversion meant changing the current use of an agricultural land into some other use, while reclassification involved specifying how agricultural lands shall be utilized for non-agricultural uses under a land use plan, subject to the requirements and procedures for land use conversion, according to the court.
It stressed that reclassification alone would not be enough legal procedure to use the agricultural lands for other purposes, and a conversion process would be needed to change the current use of reclassified agricultural lands into non-agricultural use.
“For reclassified agricultural lands therefore to be used for the purpose to which they are intended, there is still a need to change the current use thereof through the process of conversion. The authority to do so is vested in the DAR, which is mandated to preserve and maintain agricultural lands with increased productivity,” said the Supreme Court.
Even the reclassification of agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses such as school sites through presidential proclamations needed conversion clearance from the DAR, according to the court.
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