Locating and determining the classification or attributes of a piece of land anywhere in the Philippines may no longer be a problem, with the recent launch of the country’s first fully-automated web GIS parcellary mapping service at www.mapsys.ph, a project of CREBA.

Congressman and former Mindoro Oriental Governor Rodolfo G. Valencia, author of the landmark Abot-Kaya Pabahay Fund Law and other laws related to housing and real estate, hailed MapSys.ph as a revolutionary, potent tool not only for the private land sector but also for local government units (LGUs) nationwide.

The MapSys web service generates an accurate lot plan and information-packed vicinity map for any parcel of land in the Philippines. The information can be downloadable by the internet user.

Addressing real estate industry practitioners at the membership meeting of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations (CREBA) recently, Congressman Valencia said that the pioneering system used by MapSys.Ph may be adopted to help resolve, among others, decades-old contentious issues on land classification and conversion.

The colorful and professionally laid-out map displays the parcel polygons plotted on a vicinity map that contains multi-layers of spatial information, such as the road networks, waterways networks, LGU-approved land use, Strategic Agriculture and Fisheries Development Zones (SAFDZ), land cover.

The information also includes administrative boundaries from the provincial down to barangay level, elevation and slope, fault lines, Ecozones, banks, schools, churches, hospitals, commercial/industrial and tourist establishments, power/ water facilities, and many others.
Valencia said that with this information about the parcel and its vicinity, the map would serve many purposes, among them, determining the economic value of the land and its sustainability for either agricultural or non-agricultural purposes.

Valencia said that this particular issue has been a bone of contention among private land owners, LGUs and the Department of Agrarian Reform in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

The MapSys map could provide a reasonable or factual basis in helping resolve such issue, Valencia said, particularly since the use of official geodetic control points by MapSys ensures the accuracy of the relative geographic position/location, configuration, boundaries and attributes of the parcels in question.

Valencia also said that given the information that the map output speedily and conveniently provides to potential land buyers, investors and lending institutions, the service would go a long way towards facilitating the inflow of domestic and foreign investments into the country.

Hailing CREBA’s pioneering initiative, Valencia said that he will personally spearhead legislation towards adoption by LGUs and government institutions of similar systems.

He said the system will only help imbue integrity into land transactions, but also improve governance and considerably increase the peace of local development nationwide.