Preamble
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the Philippines provides that the "state shall undertake an urban land reform and social housing programs to provide deserving landless or inadequatel-sheltered low-income resident citizens reasonable opportunity to acquire land and decent housing;" WHEREAS, Presidential Decree No. 1517 dated 11 June 1978 instituted a nationwide urban land reform program and provided for the identification and proclamation of Urban Land Reform Zone; WHEREAS, Proclamation No. 1810 dated 22 December provides that areas identified as projects for development under the Zonal Improvement Program for Metro Manila and the Slum Improvement and Resettlement Program for regional cities shall become Urban Land Reform Zones; WHEREAS, Proclamation No. 1967 dated 14 May 1980 specify 244 sites in Metro Manila as Areas for Priority Development and Urban Land Reform Zones; WHEREAS, notwithstanding the above-mentioned presidential issuances relating to the institution of urban land reform and its implementing machinery, resident families in Areas for Priority Development or Urban Land Reform Zones are being evicted from such land in violation of Section 6 of the Urban Land Reform Law which provides that qualified families within Urban Land Reform Zone "shall not be dispossessed of the land and shall be allowed the right of first refusal to purchase the same;" WHEREAS, landowners of the above-cited land are able to go around Section 6 of the Urban Land Reform Law by offering to sell the land to occupant families at a very high price which is beyond the occupant's capacity to pay and subsequently evicting them for failure to exercise their option to buy the said land thus, rendering the Urban Land Reform Law in operative and of no consequence. NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby order, decree and make as part of the law of the land: