The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) distributed certificates of condonation with release of mortgage (COCROMs) to over 1,500 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in two provinces in Samar Island on Sunday, 8 December, in Calbayog City.

DAR Eastern Visayas Regional Director Robert Anthony Yu said 1,504 amortizing ARBs from the provinces of Northern Samar and Samar received their certificates, freeing them from the financial burden of paying mortgage amortizations.

Yu explained that the 1,504 certificates represent the first batch of farmers from Eastern Visayas to receive the condonation since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed into law Republic Act No. 11953, or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, on 7 July 2023.

He added that the COCROMs will erase the unpaid amortizations and debts incurred from the lands awarded to the farmers under the Operation Land Transfer (OLT) and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Yu said DAR-8 is expected to release a total of 2,140 COCROMs in the two provinces, covering an aggregate area of 2,813.1059 hectares, with a total of P41,333,397.65 in outstanding amortizations.

During the same occasion, 522 ARBs from the two provinces also received individual electronically generated titles (e-titles) under the Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project.

A total of 592 e-titles covering a combined area of 1,103.5536 hectares were distributed.