THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) urged schools to request for the issuance of school site special patents under DENR Administrative Order 2015-01 dated March 4, 2015 or the guidelines for the processing and issuance of special patents for public school sites under Republic Act (RA) 10023 and Section 4 of RA 10023.
DENR record shows that since 2015, a total of 122 school site special patents covering over 111 hectares of land have already been issued to the Department of Education (DepEd) and Commission on Higher Education (Ched) in Central Luzon alone.
Just recently, the DENR provincial office in Tarlac awarded a special patent securing the property rights of the 10,681-square-meter site of Bamban Gabaldon Elementary School in Bamban town of Tarlac.
Celia Esteban, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources officer (Penro) of DENR in Tarlac, said school site special patents confirm and secure the ownership of the land schools occupy, thereby protecting them from the possibility of eviction or conflict from other claimants.
"The processing of requests for the issuance of school site special patents has been streamlined, making it much faster and easier, as well as more convenient since the process begins at the nearest DENR-Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro)," said Esteban.
"The DENR will continue to help ensure that Filipinos get the highest standard of education by helping secure our learning institutions from ejection from the lands they have occupied and built on," Esteban added.