Forest Giverrnance and Policy

PRESIDENTIAL
DECREE NO. 705
MAY 19, 1975
Revised Forestry Code of the
Philippines
 REVISING PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 389
The urgent need for proper classification, management,
and utilization of public domain lands to meet population
demands requires reassessing the multiple uses of forest
lands. Emphasis should not only be on utilization but also
on protecting, rehabilitating, and developing forest lands
to ensure their continued productivity. Current laws and
regulations for forest lands are deemed insufficient to
support government programs focused on proper
classification, delimitation, and comprehensive
management of public domain lands.
Section 1. Title of this Code. This decree shall
be known as the "Revised Forestry Code of the
Philippines."
 Section 2. Policies. The State hereby adopts the
following policies:
(a) Forest land uses will align with the country's
development, science and technology progress, and
public welfare.
(b) Land classification and survey shall be
systematized and hastened;
(c) Encouraging and streamlining the establishment of
wood-processing plants.
(d) Emphasizing protection, development, and
rehabilitation of forest lands for sustained
productivity.
Section 4. Creation of, and merger of all forestry
agencies into, the Bureau of Forest Development.
Section 5. Jurisdiction of Bureau
Section 6. Director and Assistant Director and their
qualifications.
Section 7. Supervision and Control.
Section 8. Review
Section 9. Rules and Regulations.
Section 10. Creation of Functional Divisions, and
Regional and District Offices.
All positions in the merged agencies are considered
vacant. Present occupants may be appointed in
accordance with a staffing pattern or plan of
organization to be prepared by the Director and
approved by the Department Head. Any appointee who
fails to report for duty in accordance with the
approved plan within thirty (30) days upon receipt of
notification shall be deemed to have declined the
appointment, in which case the position may be filed
by any other qualified applicant.
Section 10. Creation of Functional Divisions, and
Regional and District Offices.
After agency merger, all positions are vacant; existing
occupants may be appointed based on an approved
plan by the Department Head. Failure to report within
30 days allows the position to be filled by another
qualified applicant.
The Department Head, with the Director's
recommendation, can reorganize and appoint
personnel. Temporarily elevated employees receive the
higher salary until replaced.
There will be at least eleven regional offices with forest
districts based on factors like area and workload.
District boundaries should ideally follow natural
watershed boundaries in river-basin management.
Section 11. Manpower Development
Section 12. Performance Evaluation
 CHAPTER II
CLASSIFICATION AND
SURVEY
Section 13. System of Land Classification
The Department Head shall study, devise, determine
and prescribe the criteria, guidelines and methods for
the proper and accurate classification and survey of all
lands of the public domain into agricultural, industrial
or commercial, residential, resettlement, mineral,
timber or forest, and grazing lands, and into such other
classes as now or may hereafter be provided by law,
rules and regulations
 Section 13. System of Land
Section 14. Existing Pasture
Classification
Leases and Permits in Forest
The Department Head shall study,
Lands. Forest lands which have
devise, determine and prescribe
been the subject of pasture leases
the criteria, guidelines and
and permits shall remain classified
methods for the proper and
as forest lands until classified as
accurate classification and survey
grazing lands under the criteria,
of all lands of the public domain
guidelines and methods of
into agricultural, industrial or
classification to be prescribed by
commercial, residential,
the Department Head: Provided,
resettlement, mineral, timber or
That the administration,
forest, and grazing lands, and into
management and disposition of
such other classes as now or may
grazing lands shall remain under
hereafter be provided by law, rules
the Bureau.
and regulations
Section 15. Topography. No land of the public domain
eighteen per cent (18%) in slope or over shall be
classified as alienable and disposable, nor any forest
land fifty per cent (50%) in slope or over, as grazing
land.
 Section 16. Areas needed for forest purposes. The
following lands, even if they are below eighteen per cent
(18%) in slope, are needed for forest purposes, and may
not, therefore, be classified as alienable and disposable
land, to wit:
1. Small areas (less than 250 hectares) not near or
connected to any certified usable land.
2. Isolated rocky patches of at least five (5) hectares
of forest, or those guarding a communal spring.
3. Previously reforested areas.
4. Areas in timbered forest concessions supporting
existing or approved wood processing plants.
5. Ridge tops and plateaus, any size, within or
surrounded by forest lands where headwaters start.
6. Roads in suitable locations.
7. Twenty-meter strips of land along the normal high
waterline of rivers and streams with channels at least
five (5) meters wide.
8. Coastal mangrove or swampland strips, minimum
width of twenty (20) meters, along ocean, lake, and
water body shorelines, and similar strips facing lakes.
9. Spaces required for public purposes like national
parks, historical sites, game refuges, wildlife
sanctuaries, forest stations, and others of public
interest.
10. Areas previously declared by the President as
forest reserves, national parks, game refuges, bird
sanctuaries, national shrines, and historic sites.
 Section 18. Reservations in forest
Section 17. Establishment of
lands and off-shore areas. The
boundaries of forest lands. All
President of the Philippines may
boundaries between permanent
establish within any lands of the
forests and alienable and
public domain, forest reserve and
disposable lands shall be clearly
forest reservation for the national
marked and maintained on the
park system, for preservation as
ground, with infrastructure or
critical watersheds, or for any
roads, or concrete monuments at
other purpose, and modify
intervals of not more than five
boundaries of existing ones. The
hundred (500) meters in
Department Head may reserve and
accordance with established
establish any portion of the public
procedures and standards, or any
forest or forest reserve as site or
other visible and practicable signs
experimental forest for use of the
to insure protection of the forest.
Forest Research Institute.
 CHAPTER III
UTILIZATION AND
MANAGEMENT
Section 19. Multiple use
Section 20. License agreement, license, lease or
permit.
Section 21. Sustained yield
A. TIMBER
Section 22. Silvicultural and harvesting systems. In
any logging operations in production forests within
forest lands, the proper silvicultural and harvesting
systems that will promote optimum sustained yield
shall be practised.
(a) For dipterocarp forest, selective logging shall be
practised.
(b) For pine forest, the seed tree system with planting
when necessary shall be practised.
(c) For other types of forest, the silvicultural and
harvesting system that will be found suitable by
research shall be applied. Meanwhile, a system based
on observation and practices abroad may be adopted
initially.
Any practised system are subject to modification or
changes based on research findings.
A. TIMBER

Section 23. Timber inventory

Section 24. Required inventory prior to timber
utilization in forest lands.
Section 25. Cutting cycle
Section 26. Annual allowable cut.
Section 27. Duration of license agreement or
license to harvest timber in forest lands.
A. TIMBER
Section 28. Size of forest concessions. Forest lands shall
not be held in perpetuity.
The size of the forest lands which may be the subject of
timber utilization shall be limited to that which a person
may effectively utilize and develop for a period of fifty (50)
years, considering the cutting cycle, the past performance
of the applicant and his capacity not only to utilize but,
more importantly, to protect and manage the whole area,
and the requirements of processing plants existing or to be
installed in the region.
Forest concessions which had been the subject of
consolidations shall be reviewed and re-evaluated for the
effective implementation of protection, reforestation and
management thereof under the multiple use and sustained
yield concepts, and for the processing locally of the timber
resources therefrom.
B. WOOD-PROCESSING
Section 30.
Section 29. Incentives to
Rationalization of the
the wood industry. The
wood industry. While
Department Head, in
establishment of wood-
collaboration with other
processing plants shall be
government agencies and
encouraged, their
the wood industry
locations and operations
associations and other
shall be regulated in order
private entities in the
to rationalize the industry.
country, shall evolve
No new processing plant
incentives for the
shall be established
establishment of an
unless adequate raw
integrated wood industry
material is available on a
in designated wood
sustained-yield basis in
industry centers and/or
the area where the raw
economic area.
materials will come from.
B. WOOD-PROCESSING

Section 31. Wood wastes, weed trees and

residues. Timber licensees shall be
encouraged and assisted to gather and
save the wood wastes and weed trees in
their concessions, and those with
processing plants, the wood residues
thereof, for utilization and conversion into
wood by-products and derivatives.
B. WOOD-PROCESSING
Section 32. Log production and processing.
Unless otherwise decreed by the President,
upon recommendation of the National Economic
Development Authority, the entire production of
logs by all licensees shall, beginning January 1,
1976, be processed locally.

A licensee who has no processing plant may,

subject to the approval of the Director, enter
into a contract with a wood processor for the
processing of his logs. Wood processors shall
accept for processing only logs cut by, or
purchased from, licensees of good standing at
the time of the cutting of logs.
C. REFORESTATION

Section 33. Forest lands to be reforested.

Section 34. Industrial Tree Plantations and Tree
Farms.
Section 35. Priority
C. REFORESTATION
Section 36. Incentives
To encourage people to engage in industrial tree
plantation or tree farming, they get these incentives:
(a) A low filing fee of fifty centavos (P0.50) per
hectare.
(b) No rent for the first five (5) years, then fifty
centavos (P0.50) per hectare for the next five years,
and one peso (P1.00) per hectare thereafter. Lessees
in long-denuded areas certified by the Director are
exempt from rental payments for up to twenty-five
(25) years.
(c) A forest charge of six percent (6%) of the current
market value of timber and forest products grown and
harvested.
C. REFORESTATION
(d) Affordable seedlings and free technical advice for
those turning their private lands into plantations or
farms.
(e) Exemption from the percentage tax in the National
Internal Revenue Code when selling timber and forest
products.
(f) Industrial tree plantations and tree farms are
treated as priority investments by the Board of
Investments. Lessees can either apply for Board
benefits or choose certain benefits like considering
development expenses as business expenses and a
33-1/3% annual investment allowance, with conditions.
C. REFORESTATION

(g) Once set, the boundaries of a plantation or farm

lease area cannot be changed, except in cases of
public interest.
(h) Lessees are exempt from tax obligations related
to withholding tax on interests paid for development
and operation expenses.
D. FOREST PROTECTION

Section 38. Control of concession area

Section 39. Regulation of timber utilization in all other
classes of lands and of wood-processing plants.
Section 41. Sworn timber inventory reports
Section 47. Mining operations
Section 49. Roads and other infrastructure
Section 52. Census of kaingineros, squatters, cultural
minorities and other occupants and residents in
forest lands.
E. SPECIAL USES

Section 54. Pasture in forest lands

Section 55. Wildlife
Section 56. Recreation
Section 57. Other special uses of forest lands
F. QUALIFICATIONS

Section 58. Diffusion of benefits

Section 59. Citizenship
Section 60. Financial and technical capability
Section 62. Service contracts.
Section 63. Equity sharing.
G. REGULATORY FEES

Section 64. Charges, fees and bonds.

Section 65. Authority of Department Head to
impose other fees.
Section 66. Collection and Disbursement
Section 67. Basis of
 CHAPTER IV
CRIMINAL OFFENSES
AND PENALTIES
Section 68. Cutting, gathering and/or collecting
timber or other products without license
Section 69. Unlawful occupation or destruction of
forest lands.
Unauthorized entry, occupation, or damage to forest
land may result in fines from P500.00 to
P20,000.00, imprisonment for six months to two
years, and a liability to pay ten times the fees and
charges that would have been incurred with proper
authorization. Making kaingin incurs a penalty of two
to four years in prison, a fine eight times the regular
forest charges, and the obligation to cover the full
restoration cost as determined by the Bureau.
Section 70. Pasturing Livestock
Section 71. Illegal occupation of national parks
system and recreation areas and vandalism therein.
Section 74. Misclassification and survey by
government official or employee
Section 75. Tax declaration on real property.
Section 77. Unlawful possession of implements and
devices used by forest officers.
Section 79. Sale of wood products.
Section 80. Arrest; Institution of criminal actions.
A forest officer can arrest without a warrant, seizing
tools and forest products for the government. The
arrested person and items must be delivered within
six hours to the designated official. In remote areas,
delivery should be prompt. The Department Head
can deputize others, including police or local
officials. Reports not witnessed by forest officers
are investigated by assigned officers, who file
complaints if evidence is found for further action.
SPECIAL CLAUSES
 Section 82. Repealing
Section 81.
Clause. Presidential
Separability Clause.
Decree Nos. 330, and
Should any provision
389, C.A. No. 452, R.A.
herein be
No. 4715 and all laws,
subsequently
orders, rules and
declared
regulations or any
unconstitutional, the
part thereof which are
same shall not affect
inconsistent herewith
the validity or the
are hereby repealed
legality of the other
or amended
provisions.
accordingly.
Section 83. Date of Effectivity. This Code
shall take effect immediately upon
promulgation.
 THANK YOU!
BIE, JASPER LANCE D.
MACALINO, REILY JIMUEL I.
TABURADA, JERALD E. REFERENCE