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THE
Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (Creba)
has warned the government of an imminent economic
disaster resulting from the land-conversion ban imposed
by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and upheld by
President Arroyo through Administrative Order 225.
“The
land-conversion ban may seem to be a harmless piece
of government policy, but it can be the last straw that
will break the camel’s back,” Reghis Romero II, Creba
president said.
Romero
said the ban would solve, neither the food shortage nor
the energy crunch, but turn the country’s housing
backlog into another crisis.
“With
food, housing and energy crises, you definitely have a
perfect recipe for an economic disaster within the next
two years,” Romero pointed out as he recounted the 1997
East Asian currency squeeze and the ongoing subprime-mortgage
debacle that all emanated from the mishandling of the
real-estate sector.
“You
cannot just tinker carelessly with the real-estate
industry without facing grave economic consequences,”
Romero stressed, saying the land-conversion ban could
eventually lead to:
• Halt
in construction activities, crippling the entire supply
chain—from land developers and housing contractors to
all the industry suppliers and service providers,
including the manufacturing, tourism and retail sectors.
•
Stock-market prices of all listed property companies
will plunge and pull down all other related businesses.
•
Unemployment will rise erroneously since construction
accounts for a big chunk of the country’s labor force.
• Within
two years, the country’s housing backlog of 1.5 million
will rise to 2.1 million based on the government’s own
conservative estimate. Still, that number is enough to
make this issue the center of political conflict.
Poverty
will thus widen and deepen, leaving poor people with
only two choices—go abroad to become migrant workers or
go to the boondocks to become rebels—depending on their
qualifications.
“This
grim scenario is not confined to the private sector. The
government itself will be badly affected, with many
state agencies failing to meet their respective goals
that are tied up or linked to land developments,” Romero
added.
“Obviously, the land-conversion ban is being used by the
DAR as a smokescreen for its dismal failure. Yet, the
DAR’s self-assumed power to convert lands is just one of
its many questionable practices,” Romero pointed out.
To avert
what he described as an impending economic disaster,
Romero proposed:
•
Review, revise and effectively implement the National
Urban Development and Housing Framework, which has been
prepared by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board
pursuant to the Lina Law, so as to guide the formulation
of location-specific land-use plans that will consider
the reclassification criteria of the Local Government
Code.
•
Pertinent to agriculture, lands have to be classified
and mapped according to crop suitability and
susceptibility to typhoon, floods and other natural
calamities.
•
Emancipation Patent and Certificate of Land Ownership
Award holders should be encouraged to band together in
cooperatives, contribute their small parcels that will
be managed professionally so that, with the resulting
economies of scale, the utilization of improved
technologies and machineries may be optimized.
Creba,
Romero said, will take the initiative in food production
by lending its entrepreneurial and business experience,
resources and talent to muster the support and active
participation of private business, especially those that
are already in the agri-business, to benefit the entire
sector. |
