Revalidation hinders installation of Hacienda Tinang farmers to lots under agrarian reform

The 237 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) of Hacienda Tinang in Capas, Tarlac have yet to be installed to their respective lot and issued their Certificate of Land Ownership at Award (CLOA) due to pending appeals from other claimants, a lawmaker said Friday.

Aklan Representative Teodorico Haresco, budget sponsor of the Department of Agrarian Reform's (DAR) P15-billion proposed budget for 2023, made the announcement upon questioning of House Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas on whether the ARBs of the 200-hectare Hacienda Tinang have been installed in their individual lots and issued individual land titles.

"There are 237 verified ARBs, kaya lang meron pong 400 claimants outside of the 237...there are some protests, and that is why there is a revalidation process on the 237," Haresco said.

"We are trying to find out if there are genuine [ARBs] among 400 more who would also want to get the land," he added.

Haresco said a task force was formed to resolve the issue. "We are trying to accommodate others," he said.

This did not sit well with Brosas, who pointed out that legitimate land owners have been waiting for so long.

The Hacienda Tinang farmers have been issued collective CLOA by DAR way back in 1995 but have yet to be granted individual titles to this day.

"These ARBs are already verified, validated. Bakit hindi sila i-install na at naghihintay pa tayo ng iba pa? Verified at validated na po sila. Dapat ipamahagi na po iyan," Brosas said.

"Kung may protesta, dapat separate na issue na iyon," she added.

Brosas closed her interpellation by asking for the names of the verified and yet to be verified ARBs of Hacienda Tinang, to which the DAR committed to comply.

The plight of Hacienda Tinang was recently highlighted after the Capas Municipal Trial Court dismissed charges of illegal assembly and malicious mischief against the farmers who participated in a cultivation activity to push for immediate land distribution.

The court junked the charges for being "duplicitous" and for "failure to allege the essential facts constituting the particular kind of illegal assembly falling under the jurisdiction of the first-level court."  —KBK, GMA News