DAR misses land distribution target in 1st quarter of 2022

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has missed its first quarter target of installing around 13,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB), Secretary Conrado Estrella III said Friday.

At the deliberation of the department's proposed P15-billion budget for 2023 before the House appropriations panel, Estrella said only 9,311 individuals were issued land titles out of the 13,102 target ARBs from January to March this year.

"We will be aggressive in support to parcelization of lands for individual titling (SPLIT) project, which is issuing individual land titles. Because while we have issued collective CLOA (Certificate of Land Ownership at Award), it seems we forgot the parcelization," Estrella said.

"Maraming may-ari ng lupa, pero iyong ikaw, Juan de la Cruz, dun ka sa malapit sa ilog. Ikaw, Jose Rizal, doon ka sa may boundary, walang ganun. There are land recipients who do not ask for parcelization anymore, pero doon sa may gusto, we have to agree with them and we are already doing that," Estrella said.

A total of P6 billion was allotted for the SPLIT program from DAR's proposed budget.

Aside from the national budget, Estrella said the SPLIT is also funded by a World Bank aid.

"We also have funding from the World Bank for this, so we are really trying to pursue this issue of issuing individuals titles aggressively. It is still the choice of the recipient of the CLOA, pero kailangan madaliin natin kasi iyong sa World Bank, mapepenalize tayo. In fact, we are already being penalized," Estrella said.

"If we already delivered the CLOA, magkakaroon na dapat sila ng individual title so they will be free from primary mortgages and their land tenure problem will be finally resolved," Estrella added.

Based on its records, DAR has distributed 4.9 million out of the 5.4 million hectares under the government's agrarian reform program from 1972 to June 2022.

In the same period, at least 2.9 million individuals were listed as ARBs.

Estrella, however, said more needs to be done since there are also lands to be distributed as provided under the 2019 Executive Order issued by then President Rodrigo Duterte tasking government agencies to identify lands which are suitable for distribution to ARBs.

Estrella said the agency was able to validate that there are 114,604 hectares that can be distributed to ARBs under EO 75.

"Marami pa tayong idi-distribute," Estrella added.

The DAR is eyeing to install ARBs to 27,102 hectares of land under its proposed 2023 budget.—LDF, GMA News