TOPS and LRA Push for the Complete Implementation of e-Titling Program in PH

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The Land Registration Authority (LRA), and The Organization of Property Stakeholders, Inc. (TOPS), are strongly pushing for the complete conversion of all paper land titles to e-titles.

The digitization of land titles will foster much-improved ease of doing business in the property sector of the Philippines, one of the common and pressing concerns that the TOPS-LRA collaboration aims to absolve with the summit.

Property owners and top executives from various companies present in the recent TOPS-LRA Summit 2015 held at Fairmont Hotel on July 28 discussed the various threats and challenges the property sector may encounter in the next few years if titles have no digital copies.

According to TOPS President Michael Jansen Abella, investors should primarily do the basic but thorough checking before buying land. As for big land developers, one must diligently verify the history of the land titles from the beginning up to the present before purchasing the property. There are already thousands of cases of fake land titles and land grabbing that have been reported because of the ease with which unscrupulous persons can fake land titles and other documents related to property ownership. 

South African Workshop Links Chemical Safety To Human Rights

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Environment and human rights organizations gathered in South Africa to identify links between sound chemicals management and human rights in a workshop conducted last July 21-23, 2015 in Pretoria, South Africa.

A workshop spearheaded by Philippine-based environmental justice group BAN Toxics (BT), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and South African group groundwork highlighted the need to integrate human rights laws when implementing chemicals management policies and practices.

“To attain global sustainable development, it is essential to acknowledge the impact of pollution from industrial and agricultural chemicals to human health and the environment. It is important to understand the connection of these two issues and make it work for communities which are most affected by toxic pollution,” says Baskut Tuncak, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Hazardous Substances and Wastes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that unintentional poisonings from inappropriate and excessive exposure to toxic chemicals kill an estimated 355,000 people globally each year, where two thirds of these deaths occur in developing countries. 

Manhattan Property Versus The Rest Of The World

Wazzup Pilipinas!

The average price to buy a Manhattan apartment hit a record US$1.87 million in the second quarter of this year - an 11 percent increase on the same period in 2014, according to a report from Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

As the price to buy real estate in New York City skyrockets, global property portal Lamudi looks at what the average Manhattan apartment is worth elsewhere in the world.

An island lot in the Philippines

Cost: 80,000,000 Philippine pesos (~$1.84 million)

Of course you could buy an apartment in Manhattan with that spare $1.87 million. Or, for roughly the same price, you could get 215,000 square feet of beach frontage in one of the Philippines’ best island destinations. Located in El Nido on the scenic island province of Palawan, the lot has two hectares of land and hotel villas right on the beach.