Duterte wants to streamline land use conversion process

February 7, 2019

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered concerned government agencies to streamline land use conversion process.

Duterte made the order during the 34th Cabinet meeting on Wednesday night in Malacanang where he also had an "outburst" due to the tedious process in the land conversion.

In a press briefing on Thursday, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said there was supposed specific proposal how to streamline the process.

"There was one proposal but that was not presented because the President went on an outburst," he said.

Duterte had to leave the room for a while and returned after a few minutes, he said.

Panelo said the streamlining of land use conversion process was the first item discussed during the Cabinet meeting.

"(O)ne of the Department Secretaries for Legal Affairs talked about streamlining, internal processes of all agencies involved in the conversion, including the imposition of definite timelines for its processing such as the provision of government permits," he said.

Also discussed were programs for improving the lives of the farmers and fisher folks.

He said among the programs presented by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol were the construction of more farm to market roads; irrigation, including solar powered irrigation system to be financed by an Israeli company; then storage facilities; activation of regional food terminals; and strengthening of the roll-on-roll off programs; easy access for farmers; institutionalization of a farmer-fisher folk credit union; the creation of a Cabinet cluster; and allow small farmer greater access to loan facilities. 

In his previous speeches, Duterte has threatened to fire some officials at the Department of Agrarian Reform due to their supposed inefficiency in processing land titles to farmer-beneficiaries. Celerina Monte/DMS