Land Administration Reform Act of 2007

Senator Edgardo J. Angara has filed a bill that seeks to reform the country's messy and costly land titling and administration system which inefficiency has grievously harmed the national economy and has left 60 per cent of all real estate properties without legal titles.

Angara's bill - the Land Administration Reform Act of 2007 - wants to create a single government agency that would handle all land administration and titling matters, an agency with the mandate to put in place the administrative and structural reforms needed to solve to mess in the country's land titling work.

Angara said only the creation of a Land Administration Authority (LAA) would ease the chaos that has resulted from too many agencies involved in land administration and registration, a "monstrous overlap" that has been dragging down the real estate sector.

Angara said that the bureaucratic overlap in land administration and titling has not only failed to issue legal titles to 60 per cent of real estate properties in the country but has been identified as the main cause behind the proliferation of fake land titles, inaccurate and incomplete land records and one of the world's costliest land title acquisition cost.

Angara said that a World Bank report in 2003 showed that at $2,000 , a Philippine land title is one of the costliest in the world. The processing period is also one of the longest in the world, added Angara.

Angara said that the drag of the messy land administration and titling system on the national economy is such that the real estate taxes forgone in the year 2000 alone was placed at $132.9 million by international economic reports.

The real estate sector has failed to keep up with the growth in the country's Gross Domestic Product, at the cost of P100 billion to the national economy from 1991 to year 2000, said Angara. The blame can be directly laid on the inefficient land titling system, he added.

Real estate revenues have been on the decline since 1995, according to Angara's bill.

"These lost earnings and opportunities could have gone to vital government programs," said Angara.

Angara said that the mess in land titling and administration has frustrated government efforts to craft an equitable real property valuation and taxation system.

The proposed LARA, according to the bill, shall carry out surveying, mapping, charting, classification and disposition of all alienable lands and patrimonial lands . It shall also issue titles and take charge of land resource information and management.

Angara said that no reform and streamlining can take place in the current land titling and administration work unless a single agency with a powerful mandate is created.

"Land administration and management has a scourge in the overlapping agencies with blurred functional lines. This makes the creation of the LARA a must for a comprehensive land management and administration initiative ," he said.