Homestead Patent = Mangrove Grab

Iloilo has a land mess brewing, and it smells like a loophole: homestead patents, meant for landless farmers, being used to claim coastal real estate nobody farms.

Councilor Romel Duron says at least three homestead patent titles now cover about 50 hectares of mangrove areas in Balabago, Bito-on and Hinactacan along the Iloilo Strait, a coastline he calls “beyond the commerce of man.”

One title covers about 220,000 square meters, another about 210,000 square meters, and the smallest is still around 70,000 square meters, which stretches the plain meaning of “homestead.”

The Public Land Act allows homestead entries up to 24 hectares of agricultural public land, on the idea that an applicant resides on it and cultivates it, not that they warehouse it for future profit.

But mangroves are not ordinary “agricultural” land, and the Supreme Court has held that mangrove swamps are public forest lands and cannot be privately titled unless the state first reclassifies and releases them.

That logic also powered the Boracay ruling, where the Court said public forest land is inalienable unless government declares otherwise.

So, when Duron says the city issued certifications calling these coastal strips “agricultural,” the public has every reason to ask whose pen at the executive branch of Iloilo City Hall made mudflats look like farmland.

Interestingly, Mayor Raisa Treñas-Chu may already have an idea of this brouhaha through a letter from a businessman and other concerned parties which was received by the city government on November 22, 2025

Mangroves are not scenic extras; studies show they can reduce wave energy by up to 66% within the first 100 meters of forest.

The World Bank has estimated that, in the Philippines, one hectare of mangroves provides more than USD 3,200 a year in direct flood-reduction benefits, so 50 hectares is not a small “environmental issue” you can sidestep.

NASA’s Earth Observatory has highlighted Iloilo’s flood-control works and mangrove regrowth, a reminder that the city’s built defenses and natural defenses rise or fall together.

The politics make it uglier, because former Mayor Jerry Treñas publicly mourned the cutting of 15 native banilad trees in Jaro, yet he has been quiet on the possible titling of roughly 50 hectares of mangroves. He spoke of a “green legacy” and a “shared commitment” to the environment. The public rallied, angry at the sight of cut lumber. But that feels performative when viewed against the backdrop of the mangrove scandal.

Caring about trees is fine, but outrage feels selective when 15 roadside trees get a sermon and half a million square meters of coastal defense gets a shrug.

Rep. Julienne Baronda and Councilor Duron are right to call for investigations and moratoriums, but we need to go further. The executive branch (particularly the City Mayor’s Office) should explain what it did when the complaint letter first landed at City Hall in November 2025.

The next steps should be practical: invite DENR surveyors and lawyers, conduct ground verification and relocation surveys, and if the parcels overlap mangrove forest lands, move for cancellation and reversion to the public domain.

City Hall should also publish a public shoreline map of titles and applications, require barangay-level notices and hearings, and stop issuing local clearances unless DENR certifies the land is alienable and disposable.

And Congress should modernize the homestead system so coastal wetlands and foreshore areas are automatically flagged and blocked unless reclassification is explicit, transparent and science-based.

Iloilo City can’t claim resilience while letting its natural seawalls be quietly renamed and parceled out.