The Manila Times
MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved the proposed National Land Use Act, a priority bill of the Marcos administration. House Bill 8466 hurdled third and final reading with over 220 lawmakers voting for it and three against. There was no abstention. The bill sought to create the National Land Use Commission under the Office of the President. The proposed body would prepare a 30-year National Physical Framework Plan which would be updated every 10 years and guide planning for, among others, settlements, production areas, infrastructure. "This is one of those bills that people may not talk about every day, but they will feel it when farms are protected, homes are built in safer places, roads are planned better and communities are spared from avoidable disasters," House Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte 1st District Rep. Ferdinand Alexander Marcos said in a statement. Leyte 1st District Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, one of the authors of the bill, said, "Land use sounds technical, but at its heart it is about fairness: where people can live safely, where farmers can keep producing food, where businesses can invest responsibly and where government can build without creating new problems". "We have to push development that is planned, useful and felt by the people, not development that fixes one problem while creating another," Romualdez said. Under the bill, land use was classified into these major categories: protection, production, settlements development; and infrastructure development. The bill protects prime agricultural lands from getting unnecessarily or improperly converted. It also protects, among others, forests and heritage areas. The bill requires the use of, among others, hazard maps in deciding land use.
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