BUDGET constraints and red tape for land surveys for agricultural and residential free-patent, a primary mandate of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), are forcing applicants to go to private land surveyors at their own expense, a party-list lawmaker said.
Speaking during DENR’s 2027 budget hearing in the House of Representatives (HOR), Party-list Rep. Elijah San Fernando of Kamanggagawa lamented that sometimes, the DENR officials in the provincial and municipal levels would ask applicants of agricultural or residential free patent to go back and forth to request a land survey, which is supposed to be free.
‘Instead, the Penros and Menros would ask the applicants to go to private surveyors,’ he lamented.
San Fernando sought clarification about the DENR’s mandate and process when it comes to public land surveys, classifications and patents.
Environment Secretary Juan Miguel Cuna, in response, said for alienable and disposable lands, the agency issues agricultural free patents and residential free patents. It starts from Cenros, Menros up to the Penros.
‘For those qualified, we issue agricultural free patents and residential free patents,’ he said.
The agency, as part of its mandate, determines the land classification or status, approves survey plans, determines if the land is alienable and disposable, and processes applications for residential and agricultural free patents.
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Cuna, when asked if the DENR has enough survey resources, said ‘no.’
Director Emelye V. Talabis of the Land Management Bureau, said the DENR’s budget is not enough to resolve disputes related to land survey.
Land cases handled by the DENR, she said, have a budget for budget resolution, but the budget is meager and not sufficient to resolve disputes, to which San Fernando asked back whether the DENR’s budget request for land survey is aided by the demand from the ground, namely Cenros and Penros.
Without providing details, he said applications for land surveys or survey requests are piling up because local DENR offices often point the applicants to go to the other offices for their survey requests because, allegedly, there’s no budget for land surveys.
The Undersecretary for Legal, Organization, Transformation and Human Resources, Ernesto Adobo, explained that sometimes, this happens because the budget is based on the DENR’s target for every year.
When the target is met, he said it also means the budget for land survey is already depleted or used up.
Cuna, for his part, said that upon requests by the local offices, the DENR Central Office also provides funding for land survey if it is necessary.
However, San Fernando said the problem also lies in the fact that the budget for land survey needs to be requested from the DENR Regional Offices, because the local offices have none for the purpose. ‘They have to go back and forth only to be told later that there’s no budget and asked to go to private surveyors,’ San Fernando said.
In San Narciso, Quezon, San Fernando noted that qualified applicants of land tenure or agricultural free patents complain of having no security of tenure because of the slow-paced processing of agricultural free patents.
The land, involving 40 hectares, needed to be surveyed as part of the process of granting an agricultural free patent.
This, he said, is not happening, even if the private claim was already rejected a decade earlier, thereby prolonging the wait of the applicants.