Lacson Bats Standard Property Valuation

First posted in Sun Star Bacolod, May 16, 2009

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/bacolod/lacson-bats-standard-property-valuation

SENATOR Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate committee on ways and means, Friday pushed for a uniform appraisal of real estate properties, saying the move will increase the value of properties.

In Friday’s consultative hearing on the proposed land Valuation Reform Act (VRA) at the Social Hall of the Provincial Capitol, Lacson said the land VRA would be beneficial to local government units (LGUs), noting that when the value of properties is standardized, it would mean more tax collections for the LGUs.

He added that it would also benefit the landowner because it has a clear standard. “Sometimes, the landowner or real property owner also fall victim to unscrupulous real estate brokers or agents.”

“If we are properly informed of the value of our properties all over the country, then, we will know how much we can sell it at a certain particular period of time,” Lacson said.

Meanwhile, the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, Inc. (NFSP) passed their position paper on the proposed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp) extension, saying that land valuation should be based on the latest sale and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) zonal valuation, and that the assessment should be undertaken only by competent courts of justice and not by administrative or quasi-judicial bodies.

This as NFSP president Enrique Rojas and assistant to the president Butch Bacaoco noted that the province of Negros Occidental commissioned a study on the actual status of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) implementation and the perception of target beneficiaries regarding the economic gains and benefits they availed from the program.

Bacaoco said the success of the agrarian reform program should not be limited to mere land redistribution. It should focus more on increasing agricultural productivity to alleviate poverty in the countryside and to improve the economic conditions of the existing four million agrarian reforms beneficiaries (ARBs).

The study, which covered the period 1989 to May 2007, noted there is a discrepancy between DAR records of 111,830 farm or home lots distributed versus the provincial government’s validation of only 78,470 ARBs; and a substantial number of the same ARBs named in several Certificates of Land Ownership Award (Cloas). An example of such is in Cadiz City where a beneficiary’s name appeared in 19 Cloas issued by DAR. Each beneficiary was awarded an average of 1.38 hectares of land. Since most of the ARBs were former sugarcane plantation workers, 54 percent of the awarded lands continued to be planted with sugar crops. The average 1.38 hectares are not economically viable for sugar farming, the position paper said.

Lacson said whenever a dialogue on Carp is conducted, what usually comes out is that the victims are the tillers/farmers. “I didn’t realize that there are so many landowners who get victimized.”

This as James Noel Araneta, director of the Biofuel Seedbank and Devt. Corp., noted that he gave up his land voluntarily to the DAR and hoped that DAR would tell him exactly what was supposed to be done but that DAR didn’t explain it.

National Tax Research Center (NTRC) director Lina Isorena pointed out the valuation problem in connection with the agrarian reform program of the government, as she shared a story of Finance Secretary Gary Teves, that when he used to be the Land Bank president, there was a time he was put in jail because of the difference between the Land Bank valuation and the valuation of the DAR.

She said valuation is really the problem concerning the properties or lands under the Carp, adding that under the Carp, “we are looking at interest of contending parties, the landowner and beneficiaries.”

She added the Carp is a social justice kind of program, with their advocacy that with the VRA, it always starts with the market value as the benchmark. "In whatever policy, it should be prepared to subsidize the amount/acquisition value to be able to successfully accomplish the social aspect of the program. But it should not be at the expense of the property owner. The property owner should really get what is due to them.”

Isorena emphasized that this should apply not just to the Carp but also to all government expropriation programs engaged in the acquisition of private properties for public purposes.

Rojas, on the other hand, said compulsory acquisition is “tedious, adversarial, confiscatory and counter-productive because it will disrupt the sustainability of already productive farms. The modes of acquisition should focus more on voluntary offer to sell and voluntary transfer, provided that full payment is immediately made and valuation is conducted by competent courts of justice based on the latest sale and the BIR zonal valuation.”

He said the proposed five-year Carp extension should concentrate more on providing support services so that ARBs can increase the productivity of the lands already awarded to them. “All outstanding balance for the value of all private agricultural lands should be immediately paid as long as the valuation is just and acceptable to the landowner so that these funds can be used to spur economic growth in the country side.”