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Planning for the People: Why Environmental Planners Need a Different Kind of Organization

Augusto B. Agosto, EnP · World Town Planning Day, 8 November 2026

Every 8 November, planners around the world observe World Town Planning Day. The observance began in 1949 through the initiative of the Argentine planner Carlos María della Paolera, who wanted the public to see planning as something that shapes ordinary life rather than a specialist exercise carried out behind closed doors. Seventy-seven years later, that idea deserves renewed attention in the Philippines.

This year I am marking the day by circulating a short manifesto calling for a genuine people-centered organization of environmental planners and allied professions. This article explains why I believe such an organization is needed, what it should look like, and what it must avoid becoming.

The Stakes Have Risen

Planning decisions have always allocated land, infrastructure, and risk. What has changed is the pressure under which those allocations are now made. Conflicts abroad, disruptions in trade and energy supply, and concerns over food security now feed directly into the cost of land, housing, and public services at home. At the same time, rapid urbanization, recurring climate-related disasters, environmental degradation, and unequal access to land continue to strain local governments that were never fully equipped to manage them.

In every cities, recurring floods, chronic congestion, and contested land-use decisions show how quickly a planning shortcoming becomes a household cost. A zoning choice made today determines who will be exposed to the next flood, who will pay more for housing, and who will spend hours each day in traffic. These are not technical questions alone. They are questions of welfare and fairness, and the people who bear the consequences rarely have a seat at the table where the choices are made.

A Profession That Talks Mostly to Itself

Since the passage of the Environmental Planning Act of 2013 (Republic Act No. 10587), environmental planning has been a regulated profession with licensure, continuing professional development, and an organized professional community. These are real achievements. Regulation protects the public by setting standards of competence and ethics.

Yet professional organization carries a familiar risk. Over time, an association can become preoccupied with representation, credentials, positions, and recognition. Conferences multiply, plans are prepared and approved, and compliance is documented, while the question that matters most goes unasked: did the plan improve anyone’s life once it was implemented?

The same risk appears in how communities are treated. Too often, consultation takes place after a plan has already been drafted, when the real choices have been made and the public is invited only to react. That is consultation as formality. It satisfies a procedural requirement without giving affected people any real influence.

What a People-Centered Organization Would Do Differently

First, it would be interdisciplinary in fact, not only in rhetoric. Land-use decisions have economic, legal, engineering, ecological, and social consequences, and no single profession can see all of them. In my own work as an appraiser and court-appointed commissioner, I regularly see planning decisions return years later as valuation disputes in expropriation and right-of-way cases. The economist, the lawyer, the engineer, and the planner are often looking at the same parcel of land from different sides. An organization that brings them together from the start would produce better plans and fewer costly disputes.

Second, it would give communities a formal place in its work. Farmers, fisherfolk, workers, informal settlers, indigenous peoples, entrepreneurs, and property owners hold knowledge that no technical survey captures. A people-centered organization would create channels through which they participate in shaping plans, while preserving the standards and legal responsibilities that bind licensed professionals. Communities should not be consulted only after a plan is written. They should help write it.

Third, it would be independent. Planning involves competing claims from government agencies, investors, landowners, developers, and communities. Each deserves a hearing, but none should prevail by default over sound planning and the general welfare. An independent organization must be willing to support a policy when the evidence justifies it and to question it when it threatens sustainability, equity, efficiency, or the rule of law. It cannot serve as an extension of political authority, an instrument of private economic influence, or a platform for the ambitions of its officers.

Fourth, it would practice the governance it preaches. An organization that advocates transparency and accountability for government must apply the same standards to itself: accountable leadership, open decision-making, prudent finances, and room for genuine debate. No individual or faction should hold unquestioned authority over professional discourse, and competence should not be measured by titles or influence.

Judging Plans by What They Achieve

A recurring theme is that the measure of planning is its outcome. A comprehensive land use plan that is approved but not implemented, or implemented in ways that ignore its own hazard maps, has not protected anyone. The test of a plan is whether it leaves society better able to withstand shocks and sustain development.

This is ultimately an economic argument as much as an environmental one. Every peso spent on disaster recovery that sound land allocation could have avoided is a peso lost to schools, health care, and housing. Good planning anticipates risk and prevents avoidable losses. It does not wait to calculate the cost of recovery.

Anticipating the Objections

Some will ask whether the country needs another organization at all. The call is to build an open, interdisciplinary space where professional knowledge is tested against public need and where communities have a voice. Such a space complements existing institutions rather than competing with them.

Others will worry that opening an organization to non-professionals dilutes standards. It need not. Professional responsibility for technical work remains with those licensed to perform it. Participation and licensure are different things, and an organization can honor both.

An Invitation

World Town Planning Day is usually an occasion for celebration, and there is much in Philippine planning worth celebrating. But it should also be an occasion for honest reflection about whom our profession serves.

I invite environmental planners, urban planners, economists, engineers, architects, lawyers, appraisers, educators, researchers, and community leaders who share these concerns to join the conversation. We do not organize to protect a profession. We organize to ensure that our professions serve the people.

Happy World Town Planning Day 2026.

Here is the Manifesto

Manifesto WTPD Download

The House That Cost More Than It Was Worth

A Lesson on Why Cost Is Not Value

Early in the morning, a fellow appraiser called me, sounding troubled.

“I’ve been asked to authenticate my appraisal report in court,” she said. “The lawyers believe my report is conservative and will prove how much the house cost to build.”

I asked her a simple question.

“What exactly were you hired to do?”

“I was hired to appraise the building,” she said.

The Courtroom as the Ultimate Test of Appraisal Practice

A recent court hearing involving an expropriation case provided an important and revealing glimpse into the realities of litigation appraisal and the role of commissioners under Rule 67 of the Rules of Court. The proceeding highlighted not only the technical demands of valuation in expropriation cases, but also the constitutional importance of independence and competence among commissioners appointed to assist the court.

In the hearing, one of the commissioners nominated by the plaintiff, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), was placed on the witness stand and subjected to cross-examination. The commissioner testified that she had served for around thirty years with Napocor and NGCP and had appeared in more than 300 expropriation proceedings as commissioner. On the surface, the credentials appeared extensive and impressive.

However, as the testimony progressed, serious questions emerged regarding the valuation approach and the commissioner’s understanding of her role under Rule 67.

Under Sections 6 and 7 of Rule 67, commissioners occupy a unique position in expropriation proceedings. They are not ordinary witnesses, nor are they advocates for the parties who nominated them. Commissioners are auxiliaries of the court — technical aides tasked to assist the judge in determining just compensation. Because expropriation involves the constitutional taking of private property, the Rules expressly require commissioners to be “competent and disinterested.”

The hearing illustrated why these qualifications are indispensable.

Although the commissioner presented three comparable sales in her report, she ultimately anchored her conclusion on the BIR zonal value and treated it as the basis for just compensation. Defense counsel immediately challenged this methodology, correctly arguing that BIR zonal values are primarily intended for taxation purposes and are not, by themselves, determinative of market value in expropriation proceedings.

Even the trial judge appeared unconvinced and questioned why the valuation could not exceed the zonal value despite the comparable market indicators presented in the report. The commissioner’s response — “makatapal mi ana, Judge” — became a telling moment during the hearing.

At that point, the issue ceased to be merely methodological. It became a question of competence, independence, and fidelity to the commissioner’s duty under Rule 67.

The situation became even more significant when defense counsel asked whether, as an NGCP engineer, the commissioner was protecting the interests of the company. The commissioner answered in the affirmative.

That admission goes directly to the heart of the Rules of Court. A commissioner is not appointed to protect the interests of either the expropriating agency or the landowner. The commissioner’s duty is owed to the court. The obligation is to provide an independent, objective, and professionally defensible opinion to assist the judge in arriving at just compensation. Once a commissioner openly identifies with the interests of one party, the requirement that the commissioner be “disinterested” is placed into serious question.

The hearing likewise provides valuable lessons for new appraisers and those planning to enter litigation appraisal practice.

Courtroom valuation is fundamentally different from ordinary appraisal assignments conducted for banks, internal corporate use, or taxation purposes. In litigation, every assumption, adjustment, methodology, comparable sale, and conclusion may be subjected to intense scrutiny through cross-examination and judicial evaluation. A report is not judged merely by how it is written, but by whether it can withstand legal and technical examination under oath.

More importantly, litigation appraisal is not simply about arriving at a value. It is about demonstrating professional independence, analytical rigor, credibility, and ethical discipline. An appraiser who enters the courtroom without a strong grasp of valuation principles, legal standards, evidentiary requirements, and the constitutional framework governing just compensation risks not only discrediting the report, but also undermining the court’s search for fairness.

The hearing also reflects a broader concern within expropriation practice. There remains a tendency among some commissioners and agency appraisers to treat zonal values as ceilings rather than mere tax benchmarks. Others become overly aligned with institutional interests. But the constitutional standard is neither convenience nor accommodation. The constitutional standard is just compensation.

At the final analysis, the courtroom remains the ultimate testing ground of appraisal practice. Reports must not only be prepared — they must be defensible. Opinions must not only be asserted — they must be supported by evidence, methodology, and independent reasoning. Above all, the appraiser must remember that the duty is not to produce a value desired by a party, but to assist the court in the fair and impartial determination of value.

“We Got No Answers”: How a Regulated Landfill Killed 36 People—and No One Could Explain Why

When the Binaliw landfill collapsed on January 8, killing at least 36 people, the tragedy did not end with the recovery of bodies. It deepened when environmental regulators appeared before the Cebu City Council and admitted they had “no answers” on regulatory compliance, monitoring, or enforcement.

In environmental governance, the absence of answers after a mass-casualty disaster is not neutral—it is incriminating. It reveals that the systems meant to protect life and the environment were either ignored, unenforced, or reduced to paperwork long before the collapse occurred.

The Moment Accountability Collapsed

The Cebu City Council hearing was supposed to clarify what went wrong. Councilors asked basic questions any regulator must be able to answer after a disaster of this magnitude:

Was the landfill operating in compliance with its Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC)?
Were inspections conducted?
Were geotechnical risks evaluated?
Were warning signs detected and acted upon?

The response—by the regulators’ own admission—was that they had no clear answers.

That moment matters more than any press release or leadership change. When agencies tasked with protecting life and the environment cannot explain how a regulated facility failed so catastrophically, the problem is no longer technical. It is institutional failure.

This Was Foreseen—And Documented

Binaliw did not fail in ignorance.

As early as 2015, the JICA Roadmap for Solid Waste Management in Metro Cebu warned against continued reliance on upland landfills, citing slope instability, environmental limits, and disaster risk. It called for reducing pressure on upland sites and transitioning to safer, metropolitan systems—treating upland facilities as temporary, not permanent infrastructure.

Nearly a decade later, Cebu remained dependent on upland disposal—turning a stopgap into a structural risk. What happened followed the very chain JICA warned about:

upland overloading → slope instability → collapse → disaster

In fact, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Region VII conducted detailed geohazard mapping in 2012, later validated in 2013, which identified multiple sitios in Barangay Binaliw — including Sitio Binaliw 3, Mansawa, and Campo — as highly susceptible to landslides due to steep slopes and unstable geology. MGB geologists not only flagged these risks but also advised communities to avoid the area until it was declared stable. Despite this documented vulnerability, such geotechnical warnings did not translate into meaningful land-use controls, zoning restrictions, or regulatory limits on waste facility siting.

A Pattern of Unanswered Environmental Risks in Central Visayas

Binaliw is not an isolated failure. It is part of a pattern of unresolved environmental risks across Central Visayas, where hazards were known, documented, and repeatedly raised—yet left inadequately addressed.

Across the region, the same warning signs have appeared again and again:

Upland and hillside developments, where cumulative slope modification, altered drainage, and increased runoff proceeded without adequate assessment of combined, long-term impacts;
Recurring flooding, increasingly tied to watershed degradation and land-use decisions that ignored natural drainage and topographic limits;
Liquid waste incidents, most notably the industrial wastewater spill in Bais City that contaminated the protected Tañon Strait, triggered fishing bans, and led to a declaration of calamity—exposing gaps in monitoring, containment, and emergency response;
Persistent community complaints about foul odors, leachate seepage, and water contamination near waste facilities—complaints that accumulated but failed to prompt decisive enforcement.

In each case, the laws existed.

The plans were written.

The risks were identified.

What was missing was not policy—but decisive, transparent implementation, sustained enforcement, and—critically—the ability of institutions to explain their actions when things went wrong.

Binaliw did not expose a lack of knowledge. It exposed a failure to act on knowledge.

Why “No Answers” Is the Real Scandal

The most disturbing aspect of the Council hearing was not disagreement—it was silence.

Regulatory agencies exist to anticipate risk, enforce safeguards, and account for decisions when harm occurs. When they cannot do so after dozens of deaths, public trust collapses—and rightly so.

Leadership changes in the DENR may follow, but they are a response to lost credibility, not its resolution. Accountability does not begin with reshuffling names. It begins with answers.

Engineering Cannot Override Geography

One hard truth emerges from Binaliw:

No engineering solution can fully overcome a fundamentally unsafe upland location.
No permit can substitute for ecological limits.

This is not ideology; it is geotechnics and hydrology. Ignoring CLUP cautions and JICA warnings does not make development safer—it postpones the consequences.