The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) – the umbrella organization of all leagues of local government units and locally elected officials in the country – with the AustralianAID (DFAT)–The Asia Foundation (TAF) partnership in the Philippines, and Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), conducted a Focus Group Discussion and Workshop on Section 4 of the Residential Free Patent Act (RFPA) or RA 10023.

The issues on the untitled public lands utilized by the LGUs for public use was first raised during the conduct of the consultation meetings of ULAP with the LGUs under the RFPA advocacy campaign from March to July 2015. The issues centered on the fact that since the passage of RA 10023, the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) on Section 4 was released on March 3, 2015 through Administrative Order No. 2015-01, but, only for public schools with untitled lands. The IRR for the titling of lands for the LGUs and NGAs is still under the development phase, as reported by Director Emelyne Talabis of the DENR Land Management Bureau to the ULAP National Executive Board (NEB) during the 77th National Executive Board Meeting on August 7, 2015.

Consequently, the ULAP NEB passed Resolution No. 2015-23, “Pursuing Policy Research and Advocacy to Support the Development of the Residential Free Patent Act (RA 10023) Section 4 for Local Government-Used Lands”. ULAP NEB deemed that with its capacity and political capital as the umbrella organization of all the local government units and officials, ULAP should be the forefront and prime advocate of the issues on Section 4 of RA 10023 to DENR and other concerned agencies. Moreover, the resolution further instructs the conduct of further study on the specific section with regard to the issues and concerns of the LGUs on land titling and develop necessary policy support materials to pursue the advocacy.

Given the demand from the LGUs with regard to the issues of the IRR of Section 4 on LGU-used untitled lands, and with support from the TAF partnership, ULAP conducted a workshop on Section 4 of RA 10023 on August 28, 2015 at Max’s Restaurant, Circle Food Complex, Quezon City Circle, Elliptical Road, Diliman Quezon City. ULAP invited the Provincial Administrator and/or Provincial Assessor of the provinces from Regions 2, 3, 4A, 4B, and 5, and cities from NCR to attend the workshop. A total of 45 participants from 20 LGUs participated in the workshop.

The said workshop focused on the issues and concerns of the LGUs with regard to their untitled public lands for public use and that can be reflected in the IRR. The following are the objectives of the focus group discussion and workshop:

• To gather initial data on properties solely or co-owned by LGUs;

• To discuss possible issues and concerns with untitled LGU properties that can be reflected in the draft IRR; and,

• To gather support from provincial governments for the issuance of an IRR for titling of LGU properties under Section 4 of RA 10023.

The LGUs identified different issues and concerns they are experiencing with regard to untitled LGU lands for public use and the actions they have taken to resolve such issues and concerns. Moreover, they also identified problems encountered in the process of titling the LGU properties.

The ULAP team clustered the problems into three main categories:

• The first cluster of issues represents the concerns that arise from the lack of proper classification and categorization of public lands.
• Another category discusses the issues that arise from the use of different survey maps in the titling process of LGU lands thus resulting in boundary disputes and difficulties in identifying untitled lands.
• The last cluster of issues pertain to problems that LGUs encounter in the system of land titling such as lack of specific guidelines, requirements and time of processing.
  Given the issues and concerns of the LGUs, there are recommendations by the participating LGUs during the workshop, as processed by the ULAP team, such as harmonization of survey maps, proper classification of lands, and streamlining the process on land titling and surveying.

This paper will be used to start-off policy assessment and advocacy of ULAP for the continuation of RFPA and development and implementation of Section 4 of the law. Moreover, ULAP will also continue to gather more evidence from the LGUs to support this advocacy that will help the DENR in the effective implementation of RFPA.