Tools for Implementing the Comprehensive Land Use Plan

            After the passage of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, cities and municipalities are now faced with the daunting task of implementing this plan. It is always depressing to hear from the people involved in the long and tedious planning process that the CLUPs that they have formulated are just left at the book shelves of the planning office just to be yellowed by time. Of course, that is never the intention. CLUPs are not made for compliance purposes of the mandates of the Local Government Code and the demand for it by the DILG’s Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) Award. If that is the case, then CLUPs would be nothing than a waste of people’s money, a significant amount of money, in fact, because the entire planning process which would come in five to six modules up to its enactment costs a lot of funds, from hundred thousands of pesos to even millions.

            CLUPs are designed to be implemented as this serves as the long-term road map to genuine development. It is the way to reduce poverty as it is directed to maximize the usefulness of land in a city or municipality. It is also an adaptation tool in that it specifically directs the people to avoid settling in disaster-prone areas and guides them as to which areas to develop, hence, enhancing their adaptive capacities in the face of disasters and climate change.

            There is no doubt about how important CLUP is in the quest for development of a city or municipality. However, the biggest doubt lies in their capacity to implement it. Let us try to look into how the following CLUP’s tools of implementation actually work and their underlying issues and concerns.

            Here is my take on the Six Tools for Implementing the CLUP:

1.    Zoning. This is the rational way of delineating or dividing the area into zones or districts based on the four planning areas which include, production, protection, settlement and infrastructure. As the Local Government Code of 1991, zoning is the means by which the CLUP is implemented. Since this is an ordinance, the responsibility for its formulation and passage lies in the hands of the local sanggunian. The exercise of police power is necessary to implement this ordinance. Therefore, it is important that the local chief executive has to have the required political will to have this ordinance implemented. This is where the problem lies. Reality tells us that some local chief executives are hesitant to enforce the full force of law as this might antagonize their supporters who are violators of the zoning ordinance.

2.    Taxation. The Local Government Code gives the LGUs the power to collect taxes, specifically for this particular discussion, the real property taxes which include basic real property, Special Education Fund, idle land tax and special benefit levy. Of these four real property taxes, only the basic and SEF taxes are being collected. Most LGUs do not have existing policy mechanisms that enable them to collect idle land tax and special benefit levy.

3.    Eminent Domain. This is the power of the state to expropriate private property for public use upon just compensation. The government has yet to flex its muscles to maximize the land resources in the name of public interest. It appears that private developers are more aggressive in land banking than the government. They go from places to places in search of developable lands while the government sits idly. Land bank is a good strategy of the government to accumulate vacant lots that it can reserve for future use like housing projects, government buildings and public facilities and utilities.

4.    Public Investments. The CLUP and the CDP are the main source of information as to what are the development projects that need to be establish in a locality. The Local Development Investment Program gives more specific details to these lists in terms of project description, budget and time frame. These projects are what are supposed to be funded by the local budget as well even by higher government agencies in the provincial and national level. Lack of prioritization, political reasons, lack of budget and lack of competence at the local level are just some bottlenecks why these proposed projects are not implemented.

5.    Guided private investments. There are a number of projects that can be effectively carried out by the private sector like livelihood or microfinance program, tourism development, and public utility like water or road project. Such projects can help alleviate poverty and enhance human development in the local level. The challenge for the local government, however, is on how to make the place attractive for investors. This can be done by first having a favorable policy environment which include Local Investment and Incentive Code, improved ease of doing business, anti-red tape mechanisms, zero corruption and good governance.

6.    Co-management of Resources. The Local Government Code explicitly provides that the local government unit shall “share with the national government the responsibility in the management and maintenance of ecological balance within their territorial jurisdiction.” Strengthening the partnership of the LGUs and the DENR remains a big challenge. There are times when divergent interests between these two agencies are evident.

Below is the comprehensive discussion of Professor Serote in his book Rationalizing Planning System (2008) regarding these tools for implementing CLUP.

1.    Zoning. The CLUP is primarily a guide for the management by the LGU of its entire territorial jurisdiction. Zoning, in turn is the guide to the proper location of activities in space (RPS, p. 152). Zoning has been defined from the early works of the National Planning Commission to the latest HLURB Town Planning Guidelines, in terms of its procedural aspect as the division of a city into districts or zones and prescribing the use regulations for each district or zone (RPS, p. 153).The Local Government Code of 1991 clearly mandates “the local government units to continue to prepare their respective comprehensive land use plans enacted through zoning ordinances which shall be the primary and dominant bases for the future use of land resources” (sec. 20, LGC).

Later zoning ordinances, especially those enacted after the 1973 and 1987 Constitutions, have had the benefit of explicit provisions of law and administrative issuances as bases of authority in addition to the implicit ones. Both constitutions, have enunciated the principle of social responsibility in property ownership and have empowered the State to regulate the “ownership, acquisition, use and disposition of property and its increments” (Art. XIII Sec. 1, 1987 Constitution).

The rationale for State regulation of land use is succinctly summarized in another section of the Constitution, “The use of property bears a social function, and all economic agents shall contribute to the common good. Individuals and private groups…shall have the right to own, establish and operate economic enterprises, subject to the duty of the State to promote distributive justice and to intervene when the common good so demands” (Art. XII, Sec. 6).

The authority to regulate the use of property was subsequently devolved to the LGUs through the Local Government Code of 1991 (RA 7160). The Code accordingly directs the legislative bodies (Sanggunian) to “prescribe reasonable limits and restraints on the use of property within their territorial jurisdiction” (Sec. 447, 458, 468). The basis for prescription of reasonable limits in land use is to be the comprehensive land use plan and the instrument for enforcing those limits and restraints according to the CLUP is the zoning ordinance. In short, the zoning ordinance is the instrument used by the State (through its territorial and political subdivision – the local government unit) to regulate the use of land within the LGU territory. And the manner in which the State shall regulate land use is to “prescribe reasonable limits and restraints” on the way landowners use their property. This latter point is what most property owners cannot understand, much less accept. Most property owners believe that their ownership is absolute. But private property ownership though exclusive is not absolute but is always limited by the over-all interest of society as administered by the State. The exercise of zoning by the local government therefore has more profound political implications than its procedural, if mechanical definition often suggests. This political implication of zoning must be understood by both the local legislators and the citizens especially the affected property owners (RPS, 153-154.)

Political Implication of Zoning

When the local Sanggunian enacts a zoning ordinance, the legislators must understand that they are exercising their political power to withdraw from property owners’ bundle of rights one of those rights namely, the right to develop or use their property. While they continue to enjoy all the other rights to their property, property owners can no longer decide on their own what use to make of their property. The right to use has been transferred from the individual owners to society at large. Thenceforth, each time an individual wants to use his land he has to secure clearance from the local government being the administrator of socialized rights on the use of land. If the local Sanggunian members realize the serious political implications of zoning, they should ensure that their zoning ordinance and the comprehensive land use plan of which the zoning ordinance is an implementing instrument are formulated through a broad participatory an consultative process so that the plan and the zoning ordinance are the product of social consensus. For their part, once assured that the CLUP and the zoning ordinance are the product of social consensus, the citizens will not begrudge the local government its authority and voluntarily comply with the prescribed limits and restraints on the use of their property, for the sake of the general welfare (RPS, 154.)

Proposed Changes in Current Zoning Practice

Consistent with the CLUP framework presented in chapter 5, some changes in the current zoning practice are necessary. The proposed changes will focus on the geographical and subject areas of coverage and on some emerging zoning district categories not yet adequately covered by present guidelines.

a.    Comprehensive Scope. The new zoning shall now cover the entire territorial jurisdiction of the LGU and not focus only on the urban area as is the current practice. Urban land use regulations shall also extend to barangay settlement centers outside the Poblacion, or in each of the identified growth centers in accordance with the chosen urban form. In case there are lands of the public domain and ancestral domains occurring in the particular LGU, the management plans of these domains shall be incorporated into the CLUP and the policies embodied in those management plans shall be reflected in the local zoning ordinance (RPS, p. 154)

b.    Total Catchment Concept. An alternative or at least complementary concept is land and water use zoning. Considering the archipelagic character of the Philippines it is surprising how we have carried on with land use planning for decades completely oblivious of the water component of our territory. It was only fairly recently that water use zonation was attempted for the first time as is the case of the Batangas Bay. However the water use zonation was undertaken as a discrete activity without coordination with the land use planning among the LGUs upstream. Yet we know that the quality of the receiving water body is dependent to a large extent on the activities in the upstream watershed. There is therefore a need to have a combined land and water use zoning that reconciles land uses in the upper catchment with the water quality requirements of various uses of the receiving water body. In this connection, amendments should be made on the Local Government Code (Sec. 131, r) and the Philippine Fisheries Code (Sec. 18) to the effect that the authority of LGUs over their municipal waters should not be limited to fisheries only. Other water uses in which the LGU may be given authority to regulate may include tourism and recreation, navigation and transport, commerce and industry, and the like. When various uses of the water body are considered the one that requires the highest water quality should be adopted as the norm in determining the overall quality of the water body to maintain and that water quality standard in turn will control the type and intensity of land uses upstream especially when such land uses have the capacity to degrade the quality of the receiving waters. Indeed, water-driven land use planning or water-sensitive land-use zoning is an urgent need that is long overdue in the Philippines (RPS, p.154.)

c.    Emerging Land Use/Zoning Problems. There are some problematic situations that cannot be easily resolved by strictly adhering to current zoning guidelines. For example, the problem of mixed land uses. The convenient practice is to adopt the dominant use only thereby ignoring the other uses. To be more realistic, both dominant and associated uses should be taken into account, adopting for this purpose the ingenious classification scheme devised by the BSWM. This implies that a new land use type namely, “Mixed land use” shall be accepted as a zoning district in its own right. To be sure, present zoning practice already promotes mixed land use by providing a list of uses which may also be allowed in any given use district. The principal decision tool is the “Zoning Compatibility Matrix”. The matrix lists all possible land-use activities and indicates whether each activity is permitted in a given zone, without, with certain, or under special conditions. The concept behind the zoning compatibility matrix is essentially sound. But there is seemingly a high degree of arbitrariness in its construction. Moreover, the same prescribed matrix is applied uniformly in all areas of the country. To improve its validity and usefulness the matrix should be constructed by each LGU so that it will truly capture the essence of the CLUP land use policies, give full consideration for the various dimensions and nuances of compatibility, and reflect the socio-cultural responsibilities of the local population (RPS, p. 154-155.)

Secondly, special use zones should be created to serve as a catch-all category for situations that are hard to pigeonhole under existing categories. Two related examples are particularly appropriate in this regard owing to the fact that most urban uses and town centers date back to colonial times (Spanish and American). Some sections of these towns are either too old and rundown or are historically or culturally significant. Certainly both sections deserve special treatment; the former may be a candidate for designation as a zone for redevelopment and the latter for conservation (RPS, 155.)

A third example of a problematic situation is how to categorize production areas that are also treated as protected areas at the same time. This ambiguity applies to some agricultural areas like irrigated and irrigable rice lands (RA 8435) and coconut lands (RA 8048). Both are obviously production areas but are covered by protected area policies. So where to classify these lands? There seems to be more sense in classifying these lands under the more stringent category that is, protected area. To do otherwise would frustrate the objective of protection altogether (RPS, p155.)

2. LAND TAXES AS REGULATORY TOOLS

In addition to zoning, the local government uses other authority-levers to deal with private property owners such as the exercise of its taxing powers and the power of eminent domain. In a positive developmental mode the LGU can use its power to spend, putting its funds directly into public investments and thereby indirectly influence private investments into the locality.

Taxes on Real Property

There are a number of impositions on real property ownership in the Philippines:

the basic real property tax, and the special levies on land such as the special education fund, the tax on idle lands, and the special benefit assessment. The first two are the more familiar ones and are used extensively for revenue raising purposes. The last two are rarely applied but they are effective planning and regulatory tools when properly utilized (RPS, p.156.)

a.    The basic real property tax. Why should one pay taxes on the land that he owns? This is a question many are not asking aloud and the answer to it is probably understood by only a few. The answer begins with the concept of land as a natural resource. As such it is supposed to be enjoyed free by everyone like they do the air, sunlight and the rain. But unlike the other natural resources, land has become the subject of private ownership. And whoever is the owner of land enjoys a bundle of rights including the right to use, dispose, transfer, and exclude others from enjoying his property. Because not everybody can own land for whatever reason, then those who are able to obtain title to land are indeed privileged members of society. Ownership of land therefore, is less of a right than a privilege. Hence, the real property tax is a tax not on the use of the land as many are wont to believe, but on the privilege of owning it. Although the basis of assessment is the actual use of the land, the tax is levied on the person who is in possession of the property. That explains why squatters, renters, lessees, and others enjoying similar tenure, do not pay taxes on the lands they actually occupy and use. For this reason too, the rampant practice of LGUs collecting the real property tax from the occupants of timberlands on the strength of tax declarations is difficult to justify. According to the Forestry Code (PD 705), the mere issuance of tax declarations to forest occupants is illegal. Many local officials explain that they are taxing the use rather than the ownership of land. This is obviously an erroneous interpretation of what the realty tax is all about (RPS, p. 157.)

b.    The special education fund. The additional one percent (1%) tax on real property accruing to the special education fund (SEF) is similarly a revenue-raising measure the proceeds of which is exclusively for the maintenance and operation of public schools (Sec. 235, RA 7160). Administered by the local school boards the SEF goes into financing the construction and repair of school buildings, facilities and equipment, conduct of educational research, purchase of books and periodicals, and the development of sports. Local school boards have the exclusive authority to determine and approve the disposition of the proceeds of the SEF, which is treated as a trust fund by the local government. Although the SEF is applied on all taxable property, it cannot be considered as a general tax due to the specific purpose for which it is intended. Hence, it is properly a special levy. Strictly speaking, the basic real property tax and the SEF are not planning tools in the sense that they do not prescribe or indicate the way land should be put to use nor do they control or limit the location of, or the direction where development should proceed. The other two special levies, namely, the tax on idle lands and the special benefit assessment are powerful planning and regulatory devices when properly applied (RPS, p.157.)

c.    Idle lands tax. The idle lands tax is an additional imposition of five percent (5%) on the assessed value of lands considered as idle (Sec. 236-239, RA 7160). Idlelands are defined according to whether they are classified as agricultural or urban. An agricultural land is deemed idle if it has an area of not less than one hectare and one half of which is unutilized for agriculture. Exempted from this definition are agricultural lands planted to permanent or perennial crops with at least fifty (50) trees to a hectare. Also exempted are lands actually used for grazing. For urban lands to be idle, these should have an area of not less than one thousand (1,000) square meters, one half of which remains unutilized or unimproved. Individual owners of subdivision lots regardless of the size of lots are liable to this imposition. Likewise, subdivision owners or operators with individual lots that remain untransfered to lot buyers are subject to this special tax. The basis for invoking exemption from this special levy includes force majeure, civil disturbance, natural calamity, or any circumstance that would physically or legally prevent the owner from utilizing or improving the property in question. What is the rationale behind the idle lands tax? The obvious justifications for this special levy are to promote efficient and optimum utilization of land for the overall benefit of society as well as to curb the practice of speculative holding of land in anticipation of windfall profits from timely sales. The more apparent reason for local governments' wanting to impose this special levy is the prospect of increased real property tax revenues accruing from additional and usually higher assessments on new buildings, machineries and other improvements once the erstwhile idle lands are put to productive use. Another use of the idle lands tax which is unknown to most people, including responsible government officials themselves, is that of a regulatory device to influence the pattern and direction of development in accordance with the desired urban form. The near coercive power of the tax to compel idle property owners to invest in their property lies in the exorbitant rate of the assessment which is set at five percent (5%) of the taxable assessed value of the property in question. Repeated imposition of the special levy on top of the basic real property tax and the mandatory special education fund will have effectively wiped out the value of the property in a matter of twelve (12) years of so. If it seems confiscatory in effect this special levy is intended to be so, in order to make the property owners realize that it is counter-productive to keep their land idle or under-utilized. If the idle lands tax possesses that compelling power then it could be used to intensify development in the desired areas in accordance with the spatial strategy or the preferred urban form in the comprehensive land use plan. For example, if the objective is to achieve a compact urban form by accommodating future urban growth through in-filling of existing vacant lots and by increasing density in the inner city rather than converting greenfield sites in the urban fringe, then the idle lands tax should be imposed on idle and under-utilized lots in the built-up area. Otherwise, applying the tax generally over the whole municipal territory will not help achieve the desired spatial outcome (RPS, p. 158.)

A possible variant of the idle lands tax which is a tool to intensify development in certain areas designated in the land use plan is a tax on under-utilized property. Land may not exactly be idle as legally defined. But its current use or use intensity may be of a lower category than what the market justifies in accordance with the concept of "highest and best use". For example, the owner of an inner-city lot continues to hold on to a single-storey residential house when the rest of the block or district have already converted to multi-storey residential or commercial development. A useful indicator of the intensity of development of an urban property is the ratio of the value of improvements to the value of the land. The lower this ratio the more likely is the property being used in a sub-optimal manner (RPS, p.159.)

For purposes of imposing the special levy, a cut-off ratio should be determined so that all properties with ratios below the cut-off one will be subject to the special levy. This regulatory device will achieve greater effect if it is applied in conjunction with a zoning plan that indicates different density levels for various geographical sections of the city(RPS, p.159.)

Although this tax is as yet nonexistent, it is a food for thought for present an would-be legislators at both the local and national levels.

d.    Special benefit levy. Another special levy on taxable real property which has been in existence since 1939 is the benefit levy or special assessment. Originally issued as a provision of Commonwealth Act No. 134, this special levy was later carried on in Presidential Decree 464 or the Real Property Tax Code of 1974. Then in the Local Government Code of 1991 (RA 7160) this special levy again appears in Section 240 - Section 245, inclusive. Despite its long existence in the laws, however, this imposition has been hardly utilized, partly because some local government officials are not aware of the existence of such a law and partly because of the lack of models or precedents to guide those who want to implement it (RPS, p.159.)

Just what is the special benefit levy? This is an assessment on lands that are specially benefited by public works projects, whether these be new construction or improvements on existing ones. This tax allows local governments to recover as much as sixty percent (60%) of the cost of the project from contributions by the owners of the lands that stand to benefit tremendously as a result of the project in the form of increased land values (RPS, p.159.)

The rationale behind this special levy derives from the principle of social justice and equity which requires that anyone who is made worse off by an action o society deserves to be compensated and anyone who becomes better off by that same action has to return the undeserved benefit to society. As is currently the practice in the Philippines, only the "worsement" compensation is claimed by property owners whose property or parts thereof are the subject of eminent domain proceedings. The betterment levy to which society is entitled, on the other hand, remains uncollected by the government. Thus, society is being deprived of a substantial source of funds to finance most of its infrastructure projects. This special levy is a veritable gold mine waiting to be tapped (RPS, p. 159-160.)

The net effect of applying the worsement compensation without the balancing effect of the betterment levy is that society ends up being the loser by allowing the benefited property owners whose property has appreciated in value through no investments of their own to pocket the undeserved dividends. If the two concepts are applied in tandem wherein those who are rendered worse off are compensated and those made better off are compelled to reimburse society for the latter's investments in public works projects, it may well be that actual payments need no longer be made in either direction. This scheme is what Americans call "wipeouts for windfalls".3 Actually, the principle of wipeouts for windfalls is unofficially being practised in the Philippines. This is exemplified in the rampant practice of landowners to donate portions of their property for the proposed public works project in anticipation of greater benefits that the project will induce or accelerate in terms not only of increased land values but more particularly in terms of general improvement in business climate and investment opportunities. Under this unofficial practice however, there is no proper valuation of the benefits that accrue to either party and no one knows in what direction the net benefits flow (RPS, p. 160.)

3.EMINENT DOMAIN PROCEEDINGS

Another inherent power of the State to deal with private property owners is the power to take back private property for public purposes. To protect private property owners from arbitrary and abusive exercise by the State of this power, the Constitution has put up limits or conditions on the government in the exercise of eminent domain. These are, that the taking is for public purpose, that due process is observed, and that just compensation is paid to the affected owner (Art. III, Sec. 1 and Sec. 4, 1987 Constitution).

The transfer of privately owned land into the hands of local governments is an important planning tool. If planning entails public control over the pattern of development in a given territorial jurisdiction, there is no more effective way to realize the socially desirable use of certain lands than for those lands to be in the

possession and control of the local government (on behalf of the society itself). This requires more extensive application of eminent domain than the usual project-specific expropriation for sites, rights-of-way, or easements of proposed public works projects. Local governments must be able to use their eminent domain powers to acquire more private property for land banking purposes. Land banking is the advanced acquisition and consolidation of lands identified in the comprehensive land use plan as areas for future urban expansion. In the Philippines it is the private developers who practice land banking with the undesirable outcome that land becomes speculatively priced when released by them in the market. This practice renders land for urban development inaccessible to the poor. Even the government often falls victim of speculative pricing when it acquires land for public use through negotiated purchase. It is therefore highly desirable for local governments to practice land banking to be able to curb speculative pricing of development land and to control the pace and timing of the development in accordance with the plan (RPS, p160-161.)

The justification for local governments to practice land banking is implied in the expanded purpose for the exercise of eminent domain as mandated by the Local Government Code, namely, “… for the benefit of the poor and the landless..." (Sec. 19, RA 7160). The addition of this phrase among the purposes for which eminent domain could be exercised leaves no doubt that land delivery to local governments especially for developing projects that directly benefit the poor such as low-cost housing is a legitimate public purpose. To satisfy this mandate, local governments rather than the private developers should engage in land banking (RPS, p. 161.)

4. PUBLIC INVESTMENT PROGRAMMING

Whereas zoning ensures that projects are located in the right place the projects subject to zoning regulation are often identified or initiated by the private sector and are not always of the right type in the sense of being socially acceptable. Hence, there is a need to supplement zoning with another authority-lever: public investment.

Investment in public infrastructure and facilities is a powerful tool to shape local development in accordance with the chosen urban form in the CLUP. When public facilities such as roads and bridges, schools, public buildings, water supply systems, or waste disposal facilities have been established these have the potential to shape the pattern of land use for decades. This ability to shape future development is due not only to the fact that once the facilities are built they are not easy to modify. Public facilities can also shape development in that they strongly influence private investment in the desired direction. Public investment therefore is a double-edged authority-lever. It improves the quality of public services and at the same time it influences private sector investment. When both the public and private sectors are investing in the community the synergistic effect created will redound to higher levels of social and economic well being of the population (RPS, p. 161.)

The preparation of the medium term and annual public investment programs is one of the functions of the Local Development Council as mandated in the Local

Government Code (Sec. 109,a,2, RA 7160). The CLUP is a rich source of programs and projects to be included in the investment program. Public investment programming is an intermediate process that links the plan to the local budget. With a functional local development investment program (LDIP) translated into its annual component (AIP), local budgets can truly operationalize the approved local development plan as directed by the Code (Sec. 305,I, RA 7160) (RPS, p161.)

With projects taken out of the CLUP and the comprehensive development plan, no longer can the present practice of plucking projects from out of nowhere be sustained. At any rate, the choice of programs and projects to be included in the

investment program should be guided by the following principles:

1.    Put emphasis on asset-forming expenditures. The broader concept of "asset" includes both hard and soft projects. Hard projects involve acquisition of land and construction of physical structures that form part of the community's capital buildup. Soft projects, on the other hand, pertain to direct investment in people, which are the most important assets of any community. Public investment in skills training, scholarships, and public health are examples of soft projects that are no less important than infrastructure projects (RPS, p. 162.)

2.    Enhance the strategic nature of public investments. Public investment projects must not only lead to improved public services in general. They must be able to influence or leverage substantial private investments in order to accelerate and expand the community's capital build-up thereby multiplying the benefits that will accrue to the inhabitants (RPS, p. 162.)

3.    Strengthen the spatial basis of the investment program. Projects, especially of

the "hard" type should support the realization of the desired spatial strategy in the CLUP. Henceforth, public investment projects should be chosen according to their potential to shape the physical development of the city in accordance with the desired urban form (RPS, p. 162.).

4.    Limit projects to those "owned" by the LGU. The projects that will be included in the LDIP/AIP should only be those owned by the LGU or those for which the LGU is solely or principally responsible. Although projects identified and implemented by higher-level agencies must be taken into consideration at the local level, such projects are already included in the programs of those higher agencies so it is superfluous to have them included in the LDIP. The "local" character of the projects need not be confined to small low-budget ones. Local projects may include large multi-year developments, given the enabling authority of continuing appropriations (Sec. 322, RA 7160). One useful guide in determining local ownership of programs and projects is the enumeration of basic services devolved to LGUs (Sec. 17, RA 7160) (RPS, p. 162.)

5.    Improve local fiscal management. Current investment programming practice has invariably followed the conservative track of fitting the number of projects

to the funds available. The implementation of the CLUP and the CDP requires

more funds than what are normally available from regular revenue sources. This would suggest the adoption of bold non-conventional approaches to fiscal management, including but not limited to, raising more revenues by improving collection efficiency in certain items where the LGU tends to under-perform keeping strict and judicious watch on expenditures, tapping hitherto unutilized revenue raising powers such as imposing special levies on real property, and exploring the feasibility of applying the various modes of credit financing as enumerated in the Local Government Code (Sec. 297-303) (RPS, p. 162-163.)

6.    Stress on participatory, consultative process. Notwithstanding the long list of programs and projects already identified in the CLUP, and despite the highly participatory process applied in the formulation of the plan itself, there may still be some important ideas that had escaped notice the first time around. Every opportunity should be given to all sectors and areas of the LGU constituency to have their ideas heard on all matters that affect their lives(RPS, p. 163.)

5. GUIDED PRIVATE INVESTMENTS

Yet another authority-lever available to the LGU is the mandate to put in place measures to attract private investments. The rationale for such intervention measures derives from two realities. First, the magnitude of investible resources in the possession of the private sector is much greater than that of the public sector especially at the local level. Significant local development can be achieved better with the private sector investing in the area in such amounts as would constitute multiples (rather than mere fractions) of the public sector investment(RPS, p. 163.)

Secondly, private investments left unguided may lead to unsatisfactory social outcomes. Private investors are not known to give prominent consideration for the general welfare as a factor in their decision-making. State intervention in private investment decisions is therefore necessary to promote distributive justice, social equity, and the general welfare (Art. XII, Sec. 6, Constitution) (RPS, p. 163.)

The authority to guide private investments is given to the Local Development Council (Sec. 109,a,4, RA 7160). Such guidance could take the form of incentives to promote the inflow and direction of private investment capital. Such incentives in turn consist of tax breaks, selective subsidies, and reducing transaction costs like the setting up of one-stop shops and eliminating bureaucratic red tape and graft and corruption. With public and private investments complementing each other the benefits that will accrue to the citizens will be multiplied many times over (RPS, p. 163.)

6. CO-MANAGEMENT OF OTHER DOMAINS

All of the above discussions pertain to the power of the LGU to regulate the use of land in private property ownership. What about land and other natural resources which are traditionally part of the public domain and the ancestral domain which are under the responsibility of the national government? Does the LGU have powers and responsibilities over such areas within its territorial jurisdiction? (RPS, p. 163.)

It was noted earlier that one of the operative principles of decentralization enunciated in the Local Government Code is that "local government units shall share with the national government the responsibility in the management and maintenance of ecological balance within their territorial jurisdiction" (Sec. 3,i, RA 7160). Local governments and the national government are therefore directed by the Code to act as co-managers of the national territory and patrimony (RPS, p 163-164.)

In pursuance of this principle, the Code empowers the Mayor to "adopt measures to safeguard and ensure land, mineral, marine, forest, and other resources of the city..." (Sec. 445,b,3,vii, RA 7160). The Code also directs the local Sanggunian to: "Protect the environment and impose appropriate penalties for acts which endanger the environment, such as dynamite fishing and other forms of destructive fishing, illegal logging and smuggling of logs, smuggling of natural resources products and endangered species of flora and fauna, slash and burn farming, and such other activities which result in pollution, acceleration of eutrophication of rivers and lakes, or of ecological imbalance" (Sec. 447, 458, 468, RA 7160) (RPS, p 164.)

In the spirit of co-management, the LGU can use the CLUP as the basis for crafting a memorandum of agreement or similar instrument with the DENR or its relevant service bureaus to jointly manage all natural resources. Similarly, LGUs may forge agreements with the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) representing specific indigenous groups to share responsibility in the planning and management of ancestral domains located within the territorial jurisdiction of the LGU (RPS, p 164.)

Reference:

Rationalizing the Local Planning System, First Edition 2008, DILG-BLGD