QuestionsQuestions (PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 399)
PD 399 limits the use of a 1,000-meter strip of land along existing, proposed, or ongoing public highways/roads until the government conducts a competent study and formulates a comprehensive and integrated land use and development plan.
A strip of one thousand (1,000) meters of land along any existing, proposed or on-going public highway or road.
They are withdrawn from settlement or sale until an appropriate government agency has made a competent study and formulated the required comprehensive and integrated land use and development plan.
They remain withdrawn from settlement or sale; no settlement or sale is allowed within the strip pending the required study and land use plan.
Private owners may not develop or introduce improvements thereon without previous approval from the proper government agency (Chairman of the Human Settlements and Planning Commission).
The Chairman of the Human Settlements and Planning Commission.
Section 1 expressly applies to the 1,000-meter strip along public highways/roads 'outside existing towns cities and settlements.' The withdrawal from settlement/sale is limited to lands outside such existing urban settlements.
First availability for: human settlement sites, land reform, relocation of squatters from congested urban areas, tourism development, agro-industrial estates, environmental protection and improvement, infrastructure, and other vital projects supporting the government’s socioeconomic development program.
Section 1 states that 'any provision of law, decree, or order to the contrary notwithstanding'—meaning PD 399 prevails over conflicting issuances.
An appropriate government agency must make a competent study and formulate a comprehensive and integrated land use and development plan for those lands.
To approve, in the case of private lands, development or improvements within the strip, and to promulgate rules and regulations to implement the decree.
Section 4 directs the Chairman of the Human Settlements and Planning Commission to promulgate rules and regulations to implement the decree.
It shall take effect immediately (per Section 5).
PD 399 does not take away ownership; it prohibits development or introduction of improvements without prior approval from the proper government agency.
It broadens the scope of the 1,000-meter restriction to cover highways/roads that already exist, those planned (proposed), and those under construction or otherwise already ongoing.
You would argue that under Section 3 the owner cannot develop or introduce improvements without previous approval from the proper government agency (Chairman of the Human Settlements and Planning Commission); acts done without such approval are contrary to PD 399.