THE Chamber of Real Estate & Builders’ Associations Inc. (Creba) reported the developments on its various advocacies and legislative agenda meant to advance not only the business interest of each member, but also to create a lasting impact on the society and the economy.
“As the sounding board of the housing sector, Creba has carried the torch as the voice and vanguard of the Philippine property sector marked by the consolidation of its collective experiences and expertise of all its members in pushing for the Five-point Housing Agenda, drafting various bills and recommendations to either amend, rationalize, streamline or beat up existing laws and policies on housing,” Creba National President Noel Toti M. Cariño said during their General Membership Meeting & Election of National Directors for 2024 to 2026 held recently in Makati City.
Under the previous board for 2022 to 2023, the chamber succeeded in getting the Congress to include in the CREATE (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act) Act its proposal to raise the VAT (value added tax) exemption threshold for residential properties to P4.2 million. While this was vetoed, Cariño said that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued Revenue Regulation No. 12024, which raised the threshold to P3.6 million.
On complaints of its developer-members about the implementation of the Housing Escrow Fund, which was established by the HLURB in 2017 as a fund pool comprised of contributions by developers in compliance to the mandated balanced housing requirement, Creba went to DHSUD in May 2021 to clear its position questioning the fund’s legality and propriety.
“A few months later, Senator Risa Hontiveros called on the Commission on Audit to keep close watch on the funds that we have contributed [to]. Later, we learned that the escrow operations have been suspended in view of a pending proceeding before the Department of Justice. This is part of our governance initiatives,” he shared.
As regards the mandated balanced housing requirement, one of the bills proposes the replacement of the Housing Escrow Fund with direct donation by the developers to local government units.
Considering the lack of adequate safeguards, conditions and parameters in the implementation of this proposed law, Cariño, without going into details, bared that they submitted and discussed with the Technical Working Group its recommended reformation of the bill.
While Creba has been successful in blocking the enactment of the National Land Use Act (NLUA) since it was first proposed in Congress in 1999 due to many of its provisions that are blatantly bias against the real estate sector, the group has changed its stand on this law.
“We have revised our position on the NLUA bills to make it more relevant and responsive to the times,” he underscored. “As part of our campaign, we have updated our supporting statistics with respect to the land area, which is actually used for agriculture versus the build upland area forest lands so that the lawmakers can really see what the real situation is.”
Creba is also seeking a change for the bills still pending before the House Committee on Housing and Urban Development, which require developers to allocate an area for the construction of an information technology (IT) infrastructure such as towers and the like in development projects at no cost.
“This requirement imposes unreasonableness burdens, of course, on our industry, and poses an adverse impact to our homebuyers. We have submitted to the House Committee our propose reformulation of the provisions that we found to be untenable,” Carinõ cited.
To keep up with the current times, Creba believes that Republic Act 6552, otherwise known as the “Realty Installment Buyer Act,” or more popularly known as the “Maceda Law,” which protects real property owners from inequitable conditions imposed on sale transactions involving real estate purchase financed through an installment basis, must be revised at present.
The chamber’s top official revealed that some of their developer-members have called upon them to move towards the amendment of the antiquated law that was approved on August 26, 1972.
“We share their view that this law imposes unjust burdens on developers and has been abused by many property buyers on installment. Maybe a review on this impact should really be revisited,” he said.
Amid incessant public clamor for more efficient and fast delivery of services around land ownership, the Land Registration Reform bill has been filed in the Lower House proposing to reorganize the Land Registration Act and amend the Property Registration Law with respect to the reconstitution of titles, administrative correction and disposition of adverse claims.
“From our analysis, these bills will actually worsen the prevailing situation by dismantling the safeguards against the fraud in the existing laws. Thus, we have to come up with an alternative draft bill that fully addresses these issues,” Cariño said. “We anticipate the incoming Creba board to present this draft bill soon to the membership for consensus.”
The last undertaking pursued by Creba’s previous board, in support of the group’s Five-point Agenda for Housing, is the proposed revision of the Centralized Homebuyer Financing Program (CHFP). Initially proposed by the chamber in 1998, it has been designed to continually generate funds exclusively for home lending, without too much dependence on budgetary support from the government.
“Considering that it has been more than 25 years since the CHFP was first conceptualized, we need to revisit its features to make them conform to the realities of the times,” he said, while encouraging all their members to continue to band together to chart the future of their association and the general trajectory of the Philippine real estate industry. “We hope that our entire membership will rise up to the occasion and react with equal zeal. If Creba had made a difference in the last 50 years, expect Creba to make a far bigger difference now in the years to come.”