Miriam seeks re-conversion to ricelands

MANILA, Philippines - “Corrupt" conversions of agricultural land are one of the underlying reasons for the current rice crisis, according to Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago. This, as she called Wednesday for a comprehensive land use policy for the country and the creation of a task force that will recover agricultural land illegally converted to other uses. Santiago, a former Agrarian Reform secretary, said she has filed a Senate bill that seeks to extend the agrarian reform program. Santiago said that during her term as Agrarian Reform secretary in 1989, land owners were bribing DAR officials at the rate of some P50 per hectare in order to secure illegal conversions. Under the law, conversion is allowed under strict conditions: lapse of five years from an award of the land to the tenant; the land ceases to be economically feasible for agriculture; the locality has become urbanized; and the land will have greater economic value for residential, commercial, or industrial purposes. "Investigations will reveal that certain vast tracts of land were still fertile when they were illegally converted. Some were converted even when the locality was still rural in nature," Santiago said in a statement released Wednesday. She said that this was one of the most corrupt loopholes of the agrarian reform program that her bill seeks to plug. Santiago added that based on a study by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a vast expanse of highly productive riceland in the country has been lost to housing and industrial development – a stark violation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The senator said that CARP Sec. 73 prohibits "the conversion by any landowner of his agricultural land into any non-agricultural use with intent to avoid the application of the Act to his landholding and to dispossess his tenant farmers of the land tilled by them." She said that CARP also prohibits "the sale, transfer, conveyance or change of the nature of land outside of urban center and city limits either in whole or part after the effectivity of the Act" in 1987. Santiago, a former RTC Quezon City judge, said the offenders can still be prosecuted because under the Penal Code, the period of prescription begins only from the day on which the illegal conversion is discovered by government authorities. The senator also said that the Penal Code allows the confiscation and forfeiture of the proceeds or instruments of the crime, as an accessory (meaning additional) penalty. Santiago said the only exception to confiscation and forfeiture of converted ricelands is granted in favor of third persons not liable for the offense of illegal conversion. She said in the case of innocent third persons, the Penal Code provides for restitution, thus: "The thing itself shall be restored, even though it is found in the possession of a third person who has acquired it by lawful means, saving the latter his action against the proper person who may be liable to him." Santiago added that the landowner who illegally converted his land is also liable for damages as reparation to the tenants and as indemnification to the state, and this obligation devolves upon the heirs of the landowner. - GMANews.TV