EL715:  THEORY and PRACTICE OF LAND RIGHTS & HOUSING

 

Course Hours  
Lecture   15-20 hours
Practical Work   40 hours
Self-study reading and writing   30-40 hours
Total Hours   85-100 hours

FACULTY INFORMATION

Course Writer: Atty Raineer Chu, Atty Bringas, Viv Grigg

 

 

COURSE SUMMARY

Candidates undertaking this course will be able to develop a biblical approach to land and land rights conflicts, being familiar with the processes of obtaining land rights documents and resolving land rights disputes within their particular city, and understanding progressions that occur in obtaining just housing internationally..

COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. Contextual Issues: Trainees will understand the implications of national urban land law, land reforms and land rights issues.

2. Praxis: Trainees will be familiar with a process of obtaining different types of land rights documents and titles that may be needed to resolve land rights issues, having walked through these steps with a community. This will be done as a group exercise.

3. Theology: Trainees will be able to critically analyze the development of a Biblical theology of land and land rights that engages the contextual issues, as indicated by a 1500 word paper on Biblical principles.

COURSE OUTLINE

Each activity is 1 hour in duration

 

Activity

Topic

Content

1 – 2

Lecture

Introduction

Introduce topic, theological issues, practical issues, set up field trip.

3 – 15

Field Activities

Analysing Land Issues in a Community

  • Professor set this up with a local church, divide students into teams, give information on locations of offices, and give students letters of information to take with them, provide GPS system.
  • Break into groups of 6-10. Define areas of responsibility, as not all can do all.
  • With the church people, visit a typical squatter area and talk to the people, and get their permissions to analyse the situation.
  • Determine what type of properties these are from the assessors office, is it private, BIR, Govt Agency, local government, by getting the tax map from the local government.
  • Visit Registry of Deeds, to get the copy of the government title.
  • If it belongs to the government go to the Bureau of lands and survey, to get the subdivision plan. Is it private, govt. if it is a fake title, students need to detect this.
  • Find actual location, through their GPS system.
  • Report back to the community and advise them on their situation. Most likely it is titled in the name of someone else. If it is government they can probably apply for socialised housing. If it is private they can go for CMP. (students need to be trained in details of communicating this first). 10% may have fake titles, so they need to be informed as to what to do.

16

Lecture + Power point

Part 2: Process of Developing Land Rights theology

 Issues in a Situational, Contextual Theology of Land

How to Develop Contextual Theologies

17-18

Power Point Lecture & discussion

The Kingdom of God and the Land

The Kingdom of God and the Land
The Nature of land in the scriptures
3 progressions from landlessness to landedness in the scriptures.

19

Lecture and Discussion

The Biblical Basis for Advocacy

Biblical sources for involvement in doing justice and advocacy on behalf of the poor

20-21

Lecture and Discussion

Part 3: Contextual Issues

Regalian Doctrine, categories of land, illegal titles, illegal exploitation, non-stewardship, no national land policy, syndicates

22

Video Case Study

Review of Documentation

Atty Bringas VCD on a case that shows the various documentation of land titles.

“The history of a land title” i.e., from the Original Certificate of Title (OCT) which is the first title issued to the land to the Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) which is when ownership is transferred to another or when a parcel of land which is covered by an OCT is subdivided into several lots where TCT’s are issued to these lots.

23

Case Studies

Alternatives to present

De Soto Model, Community Mortgage Program

24-25

Lecture

Upgrading squatter areas

Review of UN or NHA plans for upgrading squatter areas

26-38 Self-Study Land Rights Theology Reading and Writing of Paper
39-40 Presentation Land Rights Theology 5 min Class Presentation of papers

Critical Outcomes:

1. Contextual Issues: Trainees will understand the implications of national urban land law, land reforms and land rights issues.

2. Praxis: Trainees will be familiar with a process of obtaining different types of land rights documents and titles that may be needed to resolve land rights issues, having walked through these steps with a community.

3. Theology: Trainees will be able to critically analyse a the development of a Biblical theology of land and land rights that engages the contextual issues.

Assessment Tasks

Task No.

Description of the task/assignment

Marks

Weighting

EL715 – 1

(Formative assessment)

Trainees will identify in a one page summary the main documents in Filipino law related to land rights and the main issues.

100

15%

EL715 – 2

(Formative assessment)

Praxis: Trainees will walk through the steps of determining the land rights issues of a community, as evidenced by a group presentation to the church/community members. Participants and lecturer will rank each ones contribution.

100

50%

EL715 – 3

(Summative

Assessment)

Trainees will articulate a contextual theology of land and land rights that engages the contextual issues and Biblical stories in a 1500 word paper.

100

45%

 

Assessment Schedule

Task No.

Elements

Evidence required

Judgements about quality of evidence

EL715 – 1

(Formative assessment)

Identify in a one page summary:

Main documents

Main titles

Main issues

The range is recent agrarian and urban land reform laws, land titles

Name of title, office that produces it, type of land it titles

4 issues from class discussions

The sources authoritative

 

EL715 – 2

(Formative Assessment)

Walk through the steps of determining the land rights issues of a community

a group presentation to the church/community members of the results of the research.

Participants and lecturer will rank each ones contribution.

EL715 – 3

(Summative Assessment)

Articulate a contextual theology of land and land rights

 

that engages the contextual issues

 

 

1500 words

Brief discussion of theological process

Includes elements from Genesis, the law, the prophets, New Testament

Includes three movements from landlessness to landedness

1 from the 4 issues above and other issues from the class discussions

Originality, creativity, diagrams of the relationships, sources of information all accentuate the quality

 

 

 

not more than 1800, not less than 1200 words

 

Bibliography

Breuggemann, Walter, 1977 The Land, Fortress Press.

Congress of the Philippines, 1992, Republic Act No 7279,

Grigg, Viv, 2006, Biblical Reflection on Land and Land Rights, Auckland, Urban Leadership Foundation.
IBP Journal, 2004
Ejectment: beyond possession the social imperative, Vol 30, No 1, pp 92-110.
UNDP, 2002 SLU-SVP Housing Project in UNDP Housing in Manila Project, Nairobi, UNDP. (Check this reference)
UNDP, 2003 Handbook on Best Practices: Security of Tenure and Access to Land, Nairobi, UNDP.

http://www.cohre.org/mpframe.htm

 

© Viv Grigg, other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,   Last modified: April 2007


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