Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado M. Estrella III on Thursday appealed to public not to pit President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. and former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte on matters involving agrarian reform, following issues on the Ati tribe members in Boracay.

“I just want to make it clear that the past and the present Presidents have done a lot for the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs),” he said.

Estrella stressed that PRRD signed and issued Executive Order No. 75, series of 2019, to cover unused government-owned lands (GOLs), which directed all government agencies to turn over to the DAR all government-owned farmlands and place them under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) coverage for distribution to landless farmers.

Estrella also said that during the PRRD administration, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) implemented the Support for Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (Project SPLIT) funded by the World Bank. Project SPLIT involves the subdivision of collective certificates of land ownership award (CCLOAs) into individual land titles.

On the other hand, Estrella emphasized that the administration of President Marcos provided more funds to the DAR for it to provide support services to the ARBs. The present administration also signed the New Agrarian Emancipation Act of 2023 or RA 11953, which condoned the unpaid amortization, interest, surcharge, and penalties of existing loans of farmers.

President Marcos, Estrella said has been attending several CLOA distributions to personally hand into the ARBS their long overdue land titles with marching orders to DAR to finish the remaining parcelization by the end of his term.

During the most recent CLOA distribution in Bago City, Marcos turned over a total of P69.17 million worth of support services to 19 ARB organizations (ARBOs) in Negros Occidental.