The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved on the third and final reading a bill amending a provision in the 87-year-old Commonwealth law to simplify the old complex process of acquiring public agricultural lands in the country.

With an overwhelming 193 votes, the lawmakers approved House Bill (HB) 7728.

Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez said the proposed measure will replace Section 24 of the decades-old law, simplifying and expediting the otherwise longer, if not cumbersome, acquisition of properties.

The Public Land Act of 1936 (Commonwealth) is the general law in the country that governs the classification, delimitation, survey and disposition of alienable lands of the public domain, Romualdez said.

The House of Representatives approved the same measure on second reading on May 30 before Congress adjourned sine die on June 3.

Under the new proposal, notices of sale that will be undertaken by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Central Office have been reduced to once a week for just “two consecutive weeks” — from the previous six — which shall be published in the Official Gazette and in “two newspapers.”

One of the two newspapers should be in Metro Manila, while the other one should be published in the local municipality or in the neighboring province where such agricultural property for sale is located.

The notice should be posted on the “bulletin board” of the DENR main office, and in the “most conspicuous place in the provincial and the municipal building of the province and municipality, respectively, where the land is located, and if practicable, on the land itself.”

But if the property value is only pegged at PHP50,000, then the publication process will no longer require the Official Gazette and newspapers, since the notice can now be posted in three “conspicuous places” of the property on sale.

These requirements shall now be replaced by posting the notices in the “barangays and municipalities where the land is located, and on the land itself, for the notice of that application.”

The notice shall be published in “English or in the local dialect,” and shall fix a date 30 days — unlike in the previous 60 — “after the date of the notice upon which the land will be awarded to the highest bidder.”

The secretary of the DENR was tasked to issue all the necessary rules and regulations to implement the proposed measure.

Some of the authors of HB 7728 include House Majority Leader Manuel Jose “Mannix” Dalipe and Reps. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., Jurdin Jesus Romualdo, Alfelito Bascug, Eddiebong Plaza, Joseph Stephen Paduano, Carl Nicolas Cari, Zia Alonto Adiong and Stephen James Tan. (PNA)