Comments on Urbanization Process and the Changing Agricultural Landscape Pattern in the Urban Fringe of Metro Manila, Philippines

    Urbanization is important for it is a sign of economic development. But too much of it results to ecological devastation which would eventually slow down the economy of the affected region. Agricultural lands are mostly the ones being sacrificed to accommodate the growing demand for urban spaces. It was inevitable to happen in the Metropolitan Manila and is also feared to happen in other parts of the country. Several issues are brought up in the article as the main factors for the land conversion in the urban fringe areas: change of ownership with the land, abandonment of agricultural land, political influences, and fertility of the land as well as the presence of good agricultural infrastructure in the area, which I think is not only evident in Metro Manila but also in Davao Region and other areas of the country.

    In my observation in my town in Santa Cruz, there are land owners of agricultural lands who sell their lands to commercial and real estate sectors thinking that selling their lands to these buyers would give them much profit than cultivating those lands. Other land owners intentionally stopped cultivating their lands hoping they would be converted into commercial lands and sell or lease it at a much profitable and “preferably high” price as what the co-author of this research had shared in our previous lectures in AR 60.

    Politics in local or in national sense is much more pro-commercial and pro-industrial since commercialization and industrialization give more revenues. On the other hand, even if the farmers want to continue farming their lands but inadequate agricultural infrastructures such as “insufficient irrigation for the rice crops grown there” (as mentioned in the said research) would drive them to prefer conversion of their lands.

    Land use conversion is unavoidable. But intense land conversions over agricultural lands are unhealthy in general sense and thus, have to be dealt with seriously before it will cause much devastating effects – image-wise and most importantly in ecological sense.

    We cannot prevent the local regions, especially the provinces to aspire for urbanization, but at least, local governments should strongly consider “Desakota” for their development plans in their domain so that there would be a compromise, a win-win situation for the agricultural sectors and for the business and industrial sectors as well. And for the Philippines in general, much firmer policies on better urban and regional planning for the whole country should not only be supported but should be strictly monitored and implemented. As well, which is the most important of all, continuity of these better policies is much more of value because no matter how great these programs may be, if they would not be fully applied in the end, they are still useless causing only regrets and frustration.

Originally published in the admin's old blog, "Architecture and the Architect in the Making",  (http://cathydiaz.blogspot.com/), March 16, 2008