A RECENT report published by the Land Matrix Initiative has shed some light on the extent of so-called large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA) in the Philippines, and the news is not encouraging. The Philippines is among the top five countries in all of Asia in terms of the number of land acquisition deals made in the past 20 years. Even more alarming, as of 2021, there are potentially 3.6 million hectares — about 58 percent of all the arable land in the Philippines — that are under negotiation for potential deals.

And this may only be the tip of the iceberg; the Land Matrix Initiative report stresses that information about as many as one-third of LSLAs in the Philippines, whether completed or planned, is simply not available. The lack of transparency raises concern that lands are being converted from their proper use at a rapid rate. A tool exists to correct this — a National Land Use Code — but successive Congresses for nearly 30 years have been unwilling to pass it. This must change in the upcoming 20th Congress.

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