Development Entrepreneurship Concepts in Public Land Titling Partnerships

In 2010 it was estimated that out of 24 million parcels of land in the Philippines that could be titled, 50% or 12 million remained un-titled. Of these, 4 million are agricultural lands while 8 million are residential lands - the kind of lands that are in the center of each Municipality or City, which also tend to be the more expensive lands. 

It was also estimated that the total number of new titles being issued each year was around 5,000.  There are many reasons for this. 

Titling requires survey, and by then a huge number of LGUs had not been surveyed yet - by some estimates, 70%. 

There were two ways to get titles for residential land - you can buy the land from government (Miscellaneous Sales Application), or you can file a legal claim for the title (judicial process). Both required the kind of expenses that are beyond most of the capability of public land occupants.

12 million divided by 5,000 - it would take us 1,600 years to completely title all residential lands.

Fortunately, we had three things that suggested a faster way to get residential lands titled. One was a new law, two were practices introduced by the LAMP project.

First, the Residential Free Patent Act, Republic Act 10023, had just been signed into law. RA 10023 said that occupants of public lands can apply for free patents if they have been occupying such land for at least 10 years, and the LGU has no plans to use the land for public purpose. 

Unlike the Agricultural Free Patent, there is no encumbrance to the Residential Free Patent - once it has been registered it can be used as collateral, or sold. 

Moreover, the application fee only costs around 250.00 with documentary stamps, it is processed within the Province, can be issued within two months from application, and will only cost around 2,000.00 to register.

Second, the idea of DENR-LGU partnerships was introduced, tested, and proven to work in the LAMP project. Initially, DENR worked directly with target barangays. Then a daring Mayor from a Bohol town volunteered his Municipality to become part of LAMP, and offered to cover their own expenses. This gave rise to the term “LGU-led titling_.

The third was another idea from LAMP, “Systematic Adjudication”. The usual title applications are referred to as “Sporadic Adjudication” because they are voluntary - triggered by the applicants who approach DENR, coming from different parts of the same town. In Systematic Adjudication, DENR approached the lot owners in a barangay, and works with as many of them as possible to process their titles. SA lot surveys and operations are cheaper, processes are more transparent, and more people get titles to their lands - together.

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So when we were asked what could be done to increase the pace of titling, specially for residential lands, the solution was obvious to each one of us. We… argued. And argued some more. And argued some more. Steve Rood said we were “kumakapakapa”. 

Until at some point a consensus floated out of the fog. We were going to help establish partnerships between DENR and LGUs for public land titling. 

We though these partnerships would really pick up the pace of residential land titling. The impact from that would be considerable - improvements in real property tax administration on the part of LGUs, security of tenure for lot owners, conversion of land as assets into land as capital. Yes perhaps some pogi points for the Mayors and Governors. 

If it can be done in one LGU, it can be done in all LGUs - which means our little thing could be scaled up nationwide. And for as long as it would be beneficial to the key partners - LGU officials and DENR - it would be sustained.

Because these partnerships already happened in an earlier project, we knew they are feasible.

In other words, setting up partnerships between DENR and LGUs was technically correct and politically acceptable.

And by the way, the One Metric that I adapted to measure our success in Visayas and Mindanao was - the number of functional partnerships actually contributing to public land titling.

We were asked to set a target number. I said we’ll make it 100. They said I was nuts. I said, “what can I do, I had tequila the night before”.

Enabling Policies

To pursue our reform agenda, our Team Leader Atty Erwin Tiamson spearheaded an effort to get DENR to issue an enabling policy document, which later came out as Department Administrative Order 06-2011. 

Before DAO 06-2011 was passed, any area in the Philippines that was covered by Systematic Adjudication had to be decreed by the Secretary of the DENR. Local Government personnel could be deputized as public land inspectors only by DENR Secretary also. DAO 06-2011 delegated to Regional Executive Directors the power to implement Systematic Adjudication in places where the LGU agrees to be a partner of DENR. It also empowered REDs to deputize LGU employees as adjudicators.

While DAO 06-2011 spoke to DENR personnel, it was not always received warmly by LGU officials. Some welcomed the development; others were antagonistic with DENR, others maintained it’s not a local government concern.

So we talked to the biggest champion for local governance that we could find, and asked for his support. In August 17, 2011 Secretary Jesse Robredo issued DILG MC 117-2011, enjoining all LCEs to support DAO 06-2011.

We were then armed with two enabling policies - one for each of the key partners. 

Development Entrepreneurship subscribes to the idea that any situation is influenced by formal rules, informal rules, and social actors. With these policy issuances, we had the formal rules needed to push our reform agenda.

The Vision: Clusters of Partnerships Supporting Each Other

Partnership with DENR for public land titling is a new thing for most LGUs. Ditto for DENR officials. Each side has lots to learn from each other, about each other. They are bound to come across things that will help their partnership, as well as things that could kill their partnership.

Somebody taught me once that the best teacher for an LGU official is another LGU official. So I thought that one way of helping LGUs sustain their partnership with DENR is to learn from each other. Thus I thought of building clusters of partnerships - LGUs near each other partnering with DENR and learning from each other.

OODA

I’ve always been a big fun of US Air Force General John Boyd’s OODA concept. John Boyd had a standing bet, which he never lost: from a position of disadvantage, he would get into a position to kill opposing aircraft in 40 seconds. His success was attributed to a battle theory that became known for its acronym - OODA, which stands for:

• Observe
• Orient
• Decide
• Act.

Boyd said that the pilot who could go through that cycle faster would get inside the enemy’s OODA cycle, disrupt it, and win. OODA has since been applied outside of war as a business theory and, it seems, as a development theory.

OODA relates to the Development Entrepreneur ideas of “learning by doing”, or iterative learning. DE’s don’t wait for the perfect theory to drop into their laps; they grab the idea that sounds technically correct and politically acceptable, act on it, assess the results, then discard or refine the idea. This fairly describes our efforts to set up partnerships in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Firs Approach: Model-Centered

My first attempt to make this happen involved finding and setting up LGUs that can serve as models. So we worked to set up partnerships in Cebu City, Panay town in Capiz, and even in Naga City in Camarines Sur, Cordova Municipality in Mactan.

Cebu City’s partnership with DENR is still active today. They have worked together to issue more than 80 Residential Free Patents, and are also working on documentation of lands owned by the City Government.

Naga City’s housing program did not jive very well with encumbrance-free Residential Free Patents. They do not allow housing program beneficiaries to re-sell their lots for a number of years, while the RFP once registered can be sold immediately. As a result, RFP did not take off in Naga City substantially.

Panay had been under cadastral proceedings for the last few decades. Technically, claims for titles are still pending in court - and therefore administrative titling could not prosper.

Cordova’s partnership took off - and is still operational. To date they have done SA in 10 barangays out of 13 (one is an island where lands are not A&D, two are zoned as commercial).

Bottom line, the strategy of establishing Model Partnerships that will serve as Centers of partnership clusters was not very successful. It was dependent on the viability of the “models”, and required much investment in setting up. We had to look for another approach.

Second Approach: March with the DENR Army

At about this time I watched how Atty Enar Orceo in Luzon was setting up partnerships. He was working with DENR, going where they went, then helping LGUs who showed interest. Like Steve Jobs in his early days, I decided to copy the strategy.

So I worked closely with DENR in Region VII. We agreed to hold orientations for LGU officials by CENRO clusters - there were four CENROs in Cebu Province back then, and two in Bohol. In each orientation we would introduce the project to a group of LGUs. Not all would be interested, but more stepped forward than I could have approached one by one.

Through this approach I was able to move closer to my Cluster vision. This is because out of a group of LGUs belonging to one CENRO, one or two would emerge as particularly interested. We gave more support to these LGUs until they started producing RFP applications, then disseminated information about their accomplishments to other LGUs.

By the time our funding assistance ran out, we had helped to set up 110 partnerships.

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Since 2011 the average number of original titles issued has been around 50,000 a year - a considerable jump from 5,000. Beyond doubt the Residential Free Patent is a major reason for that increase. We’d like to believe that partnerships between DENR and LGUs also contributed. 

It is a considerable increase but it will still take 160 years to complete the tilting of 8 million residential parcels. We have to find a way to increase the number of original titles issued per year further.

Fortunately, some things are working in our favor. 

DENR is now completing the Cadastral survey of the entire country. As mentioned earlier, survey is a pre-requisite to titling. Subdivision surveys will still have to be conducted, though.

The Land Management Bureau is now investing in public land titling partnerships. In 2014 it started training CENROs, PENROs and their LGU partners in working together for public land titling. It will continue that initiative in 2015.

For our part, we are now testing a theory about the sustainability of local titling operations.

When we revisited our 110 partnerships, we found roughly 15% of them still operational. Most had stopped operating for various reasons - changes in LGU or DENR personnel or officials, changes in the workload (such as conduct of General Revision), etc. 

One group of partnerships that stand out for having sustained operations is the cluster of Surigao del Sur LGUs. And there is one big difference between this group and other clusters of LGUs. In Surigao del Sur the Provincial Government has established its own Cadastral Council, with its own Land Information Office. But this LIO does not undertake adjudication work. Instead, it supervises the operations of the Municipal LIOs. It makes sure there is an accountable person or leader for each Municipal LIO; that each LIO has its own Implementation Plan; that the IP is being carried out, etc. 

Our theory is that Provincial-level leadership and management will make partnerships more sustained and effective. This can come from three sources: the Provincial Governor, the League of Municipalities Chapter within the Province, or the PENRO.

Will this work? We don’t know yet. We have decided to test this idea, and are now in the process of doing so. Within a few months we will Observe what has been accomplished, then we will Orient ourselves again. And then we will be going through another OODA cycle. If we find this theory ineffective, we will look for another approach to make LGU-DENR partnerships more effective. If it works, we will apply it to other Provinces - and then look for other ways to make partnerships still more effective.

To paraphrase Che Guevarra, DE work for titling of public lands is “an evolution of rising expectations.”

In simpler terms, “There is always a better way.”

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Transcript to a Presentation by Rene Sanapo during the DE for CR+ID Seminar on January 26 2015 Rajah Park Hotel Cebu City