WHEREAS, the government’s anti-poverty program is anchored on the Social Reform Agenda;

WHEREAS, one of the elements of the Social Reform Agenda is asset reform;

WHEREAS, asset reform consists of land reform, urban asset reform, and ancestral domain reform;

WHEREAS, urban asset reform is an innovation that requires extensive research and preparatory activities of the nature of a special project;

WHEREAS, the former ODA Absorption Office created by Executive Order No. 102 has the expertise to manage projects of the complexity required by urban asset reform;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO, President of the of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby order:

SECTION 1. Reconstitution and Transformation. The ODA Absorption Office shall be reconstituted as the Urban Asset Reform Project Management Office and shall be headed by Undersecretary.

SECTION 2. Mandate. The Urban Asset Reform Project Management Office is mandated develop the proven ideas of the economist Hernando de Soto regarding the integration of formal and informal settlements into one legal system as the framework of Philippine urban asset reform.

SECTION 3. Composition of the Urban Reform Project Management Office. The Office of the President shall initiate the urban asset reform program through the Project Management Office. The Project Management Office shall coordinate the social acceptance and advocacy program on urban asset reform, including the sourcing of project funds from ODA. It shall build up the capability of the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor to manage the transformation and conversion of assets in the informal sector to produce capital and the utilization of capital to increase livelihood and business opportunities for the informal sector. The Deputy Executive Secretary for Finance and Administration shall manage the administrative operations of the Office.

SECTION 4. Institutional Relationships. The Project Management Office shall be part of the Office of the President.

Other Departments, Agencies or instrumentalities of the government shall cooperate with the Project Management Office in the pursuit of its mandate.

SECTION 5. Objectives. The Urban Asset Reform Project Management Office shall achieve the following objectives:

1. Introduce the socially accepted property system that will integrate the urban poor settlers into the mainstream economy;
2. Create the implementation mechanism within the Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor that will enable the urban poor settlers to legalize their extralegal and business assets;
3. Establish the legal instruments required to mobilize, combine and allocate the urban poor settlers’ formalized assets and business for productive purposes.

SECTION 6. Tasks and Activities. The Urban Asset reform Project Management Office shall have the following tasks and activities:

1. Research on the necessary information that will serve as the reference data for the setting of objectives and targets and conduct field studies to assess existing institutional and systemic practices and problems;
2. Undertake the review of the De Soto proposals to the Philippines, including Soto’s comparative models, and come up with the appropriate recommendations to the President;
3. Formulate and implement an intensive advocacy program for social acceptance and support of stakeholders on the urban asset reform program;
4. Facilitate the preparation of a framework for the transformation of the country’s estate and improve the titling system in informal settlements;
5. Facilitate the preparation of a framework that will enable newly formalized poor owners and small entrepreneurs to form new productive ties and networks with each other and with other sector parties.

SECTION 7. Budget and Other Resources. The Urban Asset Reform Project Management Office shall operate and pursue its mandates using the resources of the former ODA Absorption Office.

Funding for the operations of the Project Management Office shall be sourced from the savings of the ODA Absorption Office and annual budget allocation. Appropriations for the succeeding years shall be included in the budget proposal of the Office of the President.

The Urban Asset Reform Project Management Office shall absorb the equipment, facilities, office space and other properties of the former ODA Absorption Office, and such personnel of the former ODA Absorption Office that in the judgment of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Finance and Administration are needed in the carrying out the mandate of the Project Management Office.

SECTION 8. All executive issuances, orders, rules and regulations, or any part thereof, which are inconsistent with any provision of this Executive Order are hereby revoked, amended or modified accordingly.

City of Manila, October 12 2004

(Sgd.) GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO

By the President:

(Sgd.) EDUARDO R. ERMITA
Executive Secretary

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