DENR on the Fast Track

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has issued new guidelines (DENR Administrative Order 2011-05) to get the ball rolling on disposing of abandoned and incomplete cadastral survey projects as well as to facilitate actions needed to consolidate information for a database that can be used as a monitoring tool.  As per the new guidelines, DENR regional offices must complete an inventory of abandoned cadastral survey projects and establish a database to determine actions needed to complete it.  This is to support other important projects like land titling, land use planning, taxation and the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) program for the different municipalities nationwide.

A cadastral survey is a type of land survey to determine the administrative boundary of a city or a municipality and its component barangays.  It also includes the determination of administrative boundary of lots in alienable and disposable lands of the public domain for purposes of land titling.  A cadastral survey is deemed abandoned or incomplete when field activities are left unfinished after the period stipulated in the contract, or when the contractors fail to correct survey defects within the period determined by the DENR regional office, and when such cadastral project awarded in earlier DENR cadastral programs is listed as “not completed” in the DENR inventory.


Regional Executive Directors (REDs) have been given the authority to cancel abandoned cadastral survey projects and to determine appropriate penalties to be levied on the erring contractor and/or geodetic engineer.  The RED can penalize based on: failure to finish the survey within the contract period; failure to make the necessary correction(s) of the survey projects within the prescribed period; and failure to return survey project records, among others.

Progress is good,
Jon