Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) denounces the enactment of RA 112252, allowing foreigners to lease lands in the Philippines for up to 99 years. The law surrenders Philippine sovereignty and domestic interests at the altar of foreign big business and a few domestic big landlords. Circumventing Constitutional limits on foreign land ownership, this law is an outright betrayal of the Filipino people’s interests, endangering the rights and welfare of millions of landless poor.

The 99-Year Foreign Lease Act amends the Investors’ Lease Act by extending the maximum allowable years foreign businesses may lease lands from 75 to 99 years. Signed into law by Bongbong Marcos Jr last September 3, 2025, it also allows foreigners to sub-lease.

The law liberalizes land itself, creating a land rush for rentiers and landlords to acquire and secure (own, lease, buy and/or sell) land. This opens the floodgates for worse land grabbing. This means more evictions, harassment, and violence, especially against peasants, fisherfolks, indigenous peoples, and urban poor, as developers and rentiers are further incentivized to grab land at all costs.

The law incentivizes idle ownership and speculation, undermining its productive use for the Filipino people’s national development aspirations. The threat of increased land grabbing of productive agricultural lands in particular directly threatens our food security.

It also is set to hike land and rental prices, driving up the costs of goods and services.

We call on the peasantry and the entire Filipino people to rise up against the 99-Year Foreign Lease Act. Let us assert our sovereignty and right to land. Filipino lands for Filipino farmers and people! ###