NEOPHYTE Sen. Raffy Tulfo on Wednesday night engaged veteran Sen. Cynthia Villar in a heated debate over the conversion of agricultural lands into residential and commercial areas.
The tiff happened when Tulfo raised the issue during the floor deliberations on the proposed 2023 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
Tulfo said farmlands all over the country have been getting smaller since land developers having been rampantly buying them for conversion to residential or commercial spaces.
“What is the DA doing about this?” Tulfo asked in Filipino.
Villar, who was defending the department’s budget and whose family runs land development businesses, replied that they do not buy agricultural land to convert them to residential areas since it would be hard on the buyers to resell them in the future.
“Alam niyo, that’s our business. I want to tell you that we don’t buy agricultural lands in the provinces. Nobody will buy agricultural lands. We only buy in cities and capital towns,” Villar said.
She said that buyers of houses want to have the opportunity to resell their properties “if they’re having financial problems” and it will be hard to do so if they are not located in cities and capital towns.
Tulfo cited an example in Cauayan, Isabela where farmlands have been converted to subdivisions.
He said this is the reason why he is pushing for the enactment of the National Land Use Act, which has been pending since the 13th Congress.
Villar said Cauayan is a city where lands can be invested in real estate to increase value.
“They allow conversion in cities and capital towns because if they buy your land, they will buy it expensive, and you can reinvest the money and you will make more money than planting on those lands. It’s an investment decision for these people,” Villar said.
Tulfo asked the DA to give him details on how it will address this “bad system” which is happening not only in Isabela but in other provinces, as well.
Villar butted in: “Where will the people live if you don’t build subdivisions?”
Tulfo replied there are other lots other than farmlands which can be converted into subdivisions.
“Huwag lang po i-takeover ang mga farms. Kung minsan ‘yung mga farmers, dahil sila ay naghihikahos, they are taken advantage of (Let us not takeover farms. At times, farmers are being taken advantage of because they are poor),” Tulfo said.
Tulfo then mentioned the Rice Tariffication Law which pushed small farmers to sell farmlands since they do not benefit from the law.
Villar, who authored the law, defended the Rice Tariffication Law enacted in 2018 and said the measure was passed into law because the country failed to make rice production competitive even after 25 years since it signed the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
“We signed that WTO in 1995 and they gave us 25 years to be competitive, but we failed to be competitive after 25 years… If we don’t liberalize the importation of rice, they will bring down our credit rating and we have plenty of loans abroad and we have to pay higher interests for those loans so it will be a loss to the Philippine government,” she said.
“I don’t feel any guilt to the small farmers. All the money that came from (the) Rice Tariffication Law were given to small farmers owning two hectares and below,” she added.
