MALAY, Aklan — Mayor Floribar Bautista has advised members of the Ati tribe to vacate a property on the island of Boracay after the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) revoked their Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA).

Acknowledging that both the Atis and the local government were surprised by the revocation, Bautista said they were left with no choice but to obey the DAR order.

The 1,282-square-meter property in Sitio Angol, Barangay Manoc-manoc, was fenced off by its rightful owner, Digna Ventura, on 25 March 2024. The Daughters of Charity congregation reportedly advised the Ati families to stay.

DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella ordered the cancellation of the CLOA issued to 44 Ati tribe members in November 2018, following Ventura’s petition. The land was awarded to the tribe during the term of former DAR chief John Castriciones.

“There was a blunder in that decision, a clear lapse in judgment because it was not well-evaluated and inspected concerning its status,” Bautista told DAILY TRIBUNE. He suggested the Atis return to their original village, a two-hectare land unaffected by the land dispute.

As a remedy, the DAR will provide each Ati beneficiary with one to three hectares of land suitable for farming.

In an earlier interview on DAILY TRIBUNE’s digital show Straight Talk, DAR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Napoleon Galit said the disputed land was not suitable for agriculture, as dividing it among the 44 beneficiaries would only give them small unusable lots.

Galit emphasized that the mandate of the DAR is to ensure that CLOA recipients get one to three hectares of land “that they can cultivate and live decently on.”

According to a certification from the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Soil and Water Management dated 27 July 2022, the disputed land is not appropriate for agriculture due to its poor soil quality and the presence of rocks and limestone outcrops.

Galit addressed the Atis’ claim that DAR gave them a problem instead of land, saying, “We are giving them the solution” for the erroneous distribution during Castriciones’ administration.

He also cited Section 56 of Republic Act 8371, or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997, which states that “property rights within the ancestral domains already existing and/or vested upon effectivity of this Act, shall be recognized and respected.”

“They should respect the rights of the landowner,” Galit said.