On Land Conversion

Usec. Luis Meinrado C. Pagulayan

LAND IS INDISPENSABLE
TO HUMAN EXISTENCE

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION
The Congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of
measures that protect and enhance the right of all people to
human dignity, reduce social, economic and political
inequalities and to remove cultural inequities by equitably
diffusing wealth and political power for the common good.
To this end, the State shall regulate the acquisition,
ownership, use and disposition of property and its
increments.

Constitutional Basis
Article II, Section 21: The State shall promote comprehensive rural
development and agrarian reform.
Article XII, Section 1: x x x The State shall promote industrialization
and full employment based on sound agricultural development and
agrarian reform, x x x
Article XIII, Section 3: x x x The State shall regulate the relations
between workers and employers, recognizing the right of labor to its
just share in the fruits of production and the right of enterprises to
reasonable returns on investments, and to expansion and growth.

Constitutional Basis
Article XIII, Section 4: The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform
program founded on the rights of farmers and regular farmworkers, who are
landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of other
farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. To this end, the State
shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands,
subject to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as the Congress may
prescribe, taking into account ecological, developmental, or equity consider
ations, and subject to the payment of just compensation. In determining
retention limits, the State shall respect the right of small landowners. The State
shall further provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing.

Social Function of Property

Felisa Ferrer vs. Carganillo, et al.
(GR No. 170956 12 May 2010)

The use, enjoyment, occupation or disposition of

private property is not absolute. It is predicated on
the social functions of property. It is restricted in a
sense so as to bring maximum benefits to all and not
to a few chosen individuals.

AGRICULTURAL LAND

Land devoted to agricultural activity

Land not classified as mineral, forest,
residential, commercial or industrial land.

AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Cultivation of the soil

Planting of crops
Growing of fruit trees
Raising of livestock, poultry or fish
Harvesting of farm products
Other farm activities and practices performed by a
farmer in conjunction with such farming operations
done by person whether natural or juridical

INSTANCES WHEN AGRICULTURAL LANDS

ARE TAKEN OUT OF AGRARIAN REFORM

Exclusion
Exemption
Conversion

 ADE
DOJ Opinion No. 44 Series of 1990
RA 7881 (AN ACT INSTITUTING A COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN
REFORM PROGRAM TO PROMOTE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND
INDUSTRIALIZATION, PROVIDING THE MECHANISM FOR ITS
IMPLEMETATION, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES)

CONCEPT OF CONVERSION
The act or process of changing the current
physical use of a piece of agricultural land to nonagricultural purpose/s, such as residential,
commercial, and/or industrial.

LEGAL BASIS FOR CONVERSION

Executive Order 129-A, Section 4 (j) & Section 5 (l)
Section 65 of Republic Act (RA) No. 6657(Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Law of 1988) as amended
Joint DAR DOJ Administrative Order No. 4 Series of
1993
Joint HLURB-DAR-DA-DILG Memorandum Circular (March
21 1995)

Administrative Order No. 9 Series of 2014

Special Rules on Applications for Land use Conversion
Necessary for the Construction of Resettlement Areas for
those Affected by Typhoon Yolanda

Administrative Order No. 2 Series of 2011

Rules on the Conversion of Agricultural Lands for Government
Housing Projects Intended for Armed Forces of the Philippines
and Philippine National Police Personnel Pursuant to Office of
the President Administrative Order No. 9, Series of 2011

Administrative Order No. 2 Series of 2002 (Amended

by AO No. 5 Series of 2007)
Amendments to the 2002 Comprehensive Rules on Land Use
Conversion

Executive Order No. 45 Series of 2001

Prescribing Time Periods for Issuance of Housing-Related
Certifications, Clearances and Permits and Imposing Sanctions
for Failure to Observe the Same

Administrative Order No. 2 Series of 2000

Modified Guidelines on the Conversion of Agricultural Lands for
Socialized and Low Cost Housing Purposes

LEGAL BASIS OF THE MORATORIUM

QUASI-LEGISLATIVE POWERS OF
PARC & DAR
(Sec. 49, RA 6657, As Amended)

LEGAL BASIS OF THE MORATORIUM

CREBA vs. DAR (G.R. No. 183409 June 18, 2010)
The issuance and enforcement of the Secretary of Agrarian
Reform of DAR AO 1 s. 2002, as amended and
Memorandum No. 88 were done in the exercise of his
quasi-legislative and administrative functions and not of
judicial or quasi-judicial functions. XXX
The issuance of said Memorandum 88 was made pursuant
to the general welfare of the public, thus, it cannot be
argued that it was made without any basis.

Social Justice is neither communism, nor

despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the
humanization of laws and the equalization of
social and economic forces by the State so that
justice in its rationale and objectively secular
conception may at least be approximated.
Justice Jose Laurel
Calalang vs. Williams
GR No. 47800.
December 2 1940

MARAMING SALAMAT!