Land Administration in the Philippine and Victoria State of Australia - Case Study Example

Executive summary This report is a comparative study of land administration in Philippine and Victoria State of Australia. The report gives a back ground information for Philippine and Victoria state of Australia. The issues of land policies, level of information, land tenure have been addressed separately with a comparison being made of afterwards. Victoria Land Administration System Under the current land administration system of the state of Victoria, the delivery of local service that includes planning and building controls is under the administration of local councils but with respect to all other matters LAS is squarely under the control of Victoria State. The tasks are undertaken by the executive government department which has an organization structure that is similar to that of English Westminister (Bell, 2001). Initially Victorian administrative format was very similar to the British model with statutory agencies being in charge of giving distinct functions in silo or stand alone system. Here there was application of what is known as the three general approaches: Serveyor General, Valuer –General and Registar of Titles. With this old approach the legislation did not require cooperation of the agencies (Chan, 1999). Later the need arose for Australia coming up with a solution of addressing matters of jurisdiction and separation of institutions this being geared to having solutions to issues such as water quality, salinity, soil erosion and soil acidity and this required putting in place a national solution. The national government is seen as having a more powerful financial muscle by virtue of being the principal taxing agency. Australia has had had jurisdiction separation problem with regards to generation of what can be considered as coherent information that may be used in policy formulation; a dilemma that is also common with of European countries that have national boundaries that do not reflect topographical realities. From 1995 a lot of commitment has been shown with regards to improving accessibility and quality of spatial information where the emphasis has been placed on web-based systems and this has solved the historical as well as administrative problems. The spatial information infrastructure group (SII) had ensured that all Victoria State information had been managed through Victorian Spatial Information Strategy, VicMp and Lna Channel by 2004. Land Policy Component The inspiration of land policy in Victoria is having closer settlement of lands and properties that are privately owned and see the crowning of land pieces which stood at 70 000 parcels in 1999. The policies are pushed by the need of having development that is sustainable. Victoria LAS policy framework calls for having an imaginative approach in dealing with legislative framework of separate Acts that address matters such as transfer, sale, valuation and planning of land; land tax, stamp duty, heritage protection, pollution, building and mining. The marine sector in the state is considered not to be receiving adequate attention where there is a disconnected legislative framework with large gaps in terms of legislative framework. The national government has fully supported the plan of having fresh water titled which was aimed at establishing a national water market (Wallace, 2005). Land Information Component. It is acknowledged by the state of Victoria that land information by its own right is a very important commodity. It is easy for one to obtain land information through a web providing linkage of basic title and information search systems which are provided by contracted providers at a fee. VicMap is considered a vital component of Victoria state spatial data that gives continuity and systematization. The datasets that is provided include geodecy, image, property (that includes hydrography, transport and cadastre) and administrative (that includes local government and electoral boundaries. All this is available online and are normally obtainable via private resellers. One shortcoming of the maps is that they do not give soil details. The department of sustainability and environment is in charge of matters concerning, ownership, privacy, copyright, risk, management authorization (both administrative and legal), maintenance forms and access. All this are undertaken in accordance to international standards inclusive of metadata standards. Land tenure The Victoria state property law has its origin in England and as a consequence English case law applies in the courts. Basic property is derived of almost all English Law of Property Act of 1925. Feudal system origins are manifested state scheme where ownership by freehold tenure is still held of the Crown. The common tenures in Victoria State are leasehold, licenses, freehold and Crown leases. As much as the mentioned hold concept is still being held by the courts; land ownership logic practically has a basis in Torres systems of registration. The Torres system is in practice across Australia but the details have variations. With regards to Victoria State possession has high level reliance as a title source and it overrides a registered title. This is clearly manifested in surveying history in the state and the high frequency at which we have nonconformity between surveyed and title boundary. With possession being relied upon as a source of the title, it puts the state in a position of achieving land transaction efficiency which allows buyers and lenders to have confidence that the land being inspected is the land that was received during settlement. In Victoria State check surveys is rarely undertaken. Land Administration System in Philippines With regards to area Philippine covers approximately an area of 300,000 square kilometers. In this country 53% of the land is reserved for forest cover, national parks and minerals with the 47% remaining falling under what is described as alienable and disposable land. The population of the country was put at 85 million 60% of this living in the urban areas (Williamson et al 1998). Three major issues have been pointed out as being a hindrance to land development in the country: number one being scarcity of land that can be put to use in urban development; number two is informal occupation of urban land with a very active informal land market and three is the formal rural land market being at stand still. The three factors have been real undermining the ability of land contribution to economic as well as social development in Philippine. The land classification in the country can be described as being very rigid and is unfriendly to the constantly changing need that is being experienced in both urban and agricultural development and the system that is very rigid lacks effectiveness in promoting the needed level of natural resources management. Land Tenure Philippine is a country where flow of land use is from agriculture to non-agriculture, this being more evident in urban neighborhoods where high procedural barriers have been encountered. The country has some of its major land administrative laws being seen as outdated and being out of tune with modern land use legislation (Dale, 1999). As a result of this the public has lost confidence in the land titling system of the country. The recognition land rights majorly is in non-forest lands and therefore most of the indigenous population who have been occupying and cultivating land that falls under forest land for many generations are not formally recognized as the owners. In some areas in country an entire community may be found to have a big establishment in land that is classified as forest land. Land classification is a critical issue in Philippine owing to the fact that once land has been changed from being a forest land to a settled land reversing the process is impossible. In the current policy, the institutional and legal framework concerning the protection of forest, many a times is seen to be out of touch with the reality on the ground. Land Market Information Even though the last decade has seen an increase in land registration in Philippine, a relatively high proportion of private A&D land do not have titles. In order to have title security and land administration system that is sustainable there is need to have a reliable records maintenance (Dixon-Gough R ,1999). In the current situation we have land record management systems that is non-efficient and land records inventories are limited. Most records have been reportedly to have been destroyed through war, theft, fire, water or misplaced and the remaining records being in fragile conditions. Illegal alteration of the records is also a common occurrence. The land registry in the country cannot be accessed easily and transaction cost is very high in consideration of the economic status of the people, and this has been an impediment in registration of land; a condition that does not favour investing in land. Many of the people who are undertaking land transaction rarely clear the full process of land registration; this can be linked to community members having a low understanding of the need land registration. This can also act as a pointer that land registration procedure in Philippine need to be simplified in addition to the fee charges being reviewed. The country requires community education and awareness programmes and not just public relations programmes. Institutional framework The land institutional framework in Philippine originally was compost of a large central agencies very conservative in nature having vested interest and highly resistant to change. Currently the trend is ensuring that we have deconcentration. In this spirit the central government is to be in charge of policy and ensuring that there is maintenance of a unitary legal and regulatory framework and uniformity in the standards of service while other responsibilities are to be undertaken at regional level; a trend is yet to be achieved. Legal Framework In Philippine the rationalization of uncoordinated and disintegrated land related legislation is pauses a great challenge. Low reinforcement is very low added to the culture of reaching consensus making it difficulty coming to agreement of having amendment of the legislation that are already in place. Even though the country has a right of compensation by state; this is generally limited and not effective. There are many conflicts related to land tenure that arise in this country. This land disputes usually are resolved through court litigation and are characterized by time delays in addition to being expensive and beyond the reach of many. Comparing and contrasting of Australia (Victoria) and Philippine The studies on Philippine and Victoria State has shown a clear contrast. For the case of Victoria most of the issues are solved locally by the state with the national government of Australia having minimum contribution. It is quite clear that in Victoria we have a population that is aware that having one’s land registered is very important in contrast to the Philippine where land registration is not taken with the seriousness it deserves. In Victoria State and Australia as a whole there is high level of land and property registration and this explains why giving information on registration is a business on its own right. For the case of Philippine land registration is in a sorry state with records being reported to have been lost, stolen or burned among other issues. Use of technology in registration of land and property has come out prominently in Victoria State with information being easily obtainable through the web. In Philippine the use of technology is yet to be fully embraced. This makes the process of registration and the entire process of acquiring information on land to be cumbersome in addition to the high cost. It is because of this that many people in Philippine abandon the whole process unlike with the case of Victoria where the process is seen to be easy and efficient. In Philippine there has been high level of conflicts with land unlike the case of Victoria State of Australia. There are some similarly in the two cases that can be pointed out. In both cases it is clear that it recognized that there are functions that are to be done regionally while others are to be are to be dedicated to the national government. In both the cases a soil map is yet to be established with a high likelihood of this happening sooner in Victoria. Conclusion From the comparative study it can be concluded that there is a big difference in the level of development of Land Administration System for Philippines and the state of Victoria. The use of technology is seen to be a very important in advancement of LAS as manifested in the case of Victoria State. The level of investment of a country is highly dependant on the LAS. References Bell, K. and Cleary, M. (2001) Protecting the Integrity of Victoria’s Cadastre: Managing the Risk, A Spatial Odyssey, 42nd Australian Surveyors Congress. Chan, T. O. and Williamson, I. (1999) Spatial Data Infrastructure Management: Lessons from Corporate GIS Development, AURISA Conference, 22-26 November. Dale, P. and McLaughlin, J. (1999) Land Administration,Oxford University Press. Dixon-Gough R (editor), 1999. Land Reform and Sustainable Development, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, London, UK. Do, Q T, and Iyer, L, 2002. “Land Rights and Economic Development: Evidence from Viet Nam.” Mimeo, MIT. Christodoulou D, 1990. The Unpromised Land: Agrarian Reform and Conflict Worldwide, Zed Books Ltd, UK. Ristevski, J. A. and Williamson, I. P. (2001) The Reform of Statutory Regulations Relating to the Surveying Profession, The Australian Surveyor, Vol. 46, pp. 42-53. Ruoff, T. (1957) An Englishman Looks at theTorrens System, Law Book Co, Sydney, and 1952 articles in 26 Australian Law Journal. Wallace, J. and Williamson, I.P. (2005) Building land markets, Journal of Land Use Policy, (In press). Wallace, J. and Williamson, I.P. (2005) Building land markets, Journal of Land Use Policy, (In press). Williamson, I., Chan, T. O. and Effenberg, W. (1998) Development of Spatial Data Infrastructures –Lessons Learnt from the Australian Cadastral Databases, Geomatica, Vol. 52, pp. 177-178. Read More