Question & AnswerQ&A (Commonwealth Act No. 441)
The National Land Settlement Administration is a corporation composed of five persons acting as the Board of Directors, established to facilitate the acquisition, settlement, and cultivation of lands in the Philippines.
Members of the Board of Directors are appointed by the President of the Philippines with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly, serving three-year terms.
Its objectives include facilitating land acquisition and settlement, providing farms to tenant and small farmers, encouraging migration to sparsely populated areas, and developing new money crops.
The Corporation can hold public agricultural lands for up to twenty-five years, renewable by the President for an additional period not exceeding twenty-five years.
No settler may hold more than twenty-four hectares, and lands granted cannot be encumbered, alienated, or transferred (except by inheritance) within ten years after the final grant.
They cannot acquire land directly or indirectly within the reservation unless approved specifically by the Board of Directors.
It can acquire necessary private lands for roads, highways, and those adjacent or surrounded by public lands acquired by the Corporation to fulfill its purposes.
The Corporation can establish credit agencies, electric and water plants, irrigation systems, trading cooperatives, and act as agents for marketing products.
The interest rate on such loans shall not exceed six percent per annum.
The capital stock is twenty million pesos, subscribed by the Government of the Philippines, with appropriations out of coconut oil excise tax proceeds or other available Treasury funds not exceeding four million pesos annually.