113
Land
investments
Stakeholders
• Community
• Business
• Government
Description
Process
Land investments
undergo a
permitting/
contracting process
between a business
and landowner.
Such process should
undergo sufficient
consultation
following standards
of FPIC with affected
communities, and
should be under
the supervision of
the appropriate
government agency.
Negotiation: an
investor applies
to use land for an
investment
Development:
investor removes
exiting structures
and changes the
use of the land
Closure: turnover
of land to the
government or its
owner
Impact on Land and
Resource Rights
Land investments
deprive communities
of prior rights to
the use of land and
natural resources.
In some instances,
damage to the
environment during
and/or after the
investment expose
communities to
hazards and risks.
Of all causes of land and resource conflicts, resistance to agrarian reform
was the most violent in terms of killings. Resistance occurs in 62 percent of
agrarian reform conflicts, mostly during the latter stages of installation (the
third and last stage of the land distribution process). It is in this stage that
landowners pursue desperate means to thwart the redistribution of land to
Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs). Apart from depriving ARBs of land to
till, landowner resistance results in HRVs such as killings, injuries, detention,
grave threats, and criminalization.
Overlapping claims, the second cause of land conflict, are symptoms of
the fundamental problem of overlapping land laws and programs of the
government. A majority of land conflict caused by overlapping claims relate
to ancestral domains. The key issue is the poor security of tenure afforded
by the State to ICCs/IPs over their traditional territories. Tremendous delays
occur in the issuance of Certificates of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADTs)
and Certificates of Land Titles (CALTs), and their registration with the Land
Registration Authority (LRA). On the other hand, government programs for
land titling, distribution, and investments are unhampered. As a result, the
encroachment of property claimants within ancestral domains is legitimized.
More than 7,000 households have been evicted from their residence due
to overlapping claims, the most number in all causes of land and resource
conflicts in this study.
Land investments as a source of conflict account for 55 percent of the 352
cases of conflict analyzed in this study. Most of these cases are conflicts
between businesses and communities, and some are between government
and communities. In terms of type of investment, conflicts arose most
frequently in plantations (101 cases of conflict), mining (44), infrastructure (40),
and forestry (7).
Land Conflicts and Land Rights Defenders in the Philippines
Cause
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