PBBM empowers farmers with land ownership awards

Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III announced that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. handed out 3,772 certificates of land ownership awards, encompassing a total area of 4,659 hectares of agricultural lands, in a distribution event at the Capitol Complex in Patin, Agusan del Sur over the weekend.

Marcos in his speech, called on government agencies to extend help to agrarian reform beneficiaries to maximize the opportunity brought about by their newly acquired lands.

“Iyang si Conrad (referring to DAR Secretary Estrella), hindi iyan natutulog. Ang sabi ko sa kanya, kailan ba natin mai-subdivide ang mga consolidated CLOA para maipamahagi na? Kinukulit ko siya kaya’t patuloy ang prosesong ito,” Marcos said.

The DAR has awarded land titles covering 109,199 hectares of land nationwide, benefitting 98,203 ARBs from July 2022 to December 2023.

“Layunin kong matapos ang pamamahagi ng lupang saklaw ng Agrarian Reform Program bago matapos ang aking termino. At ang 3,184 na titulo na ipapamahagi natin sa araw na ito ay patunay ng kanilang patuloy na pagsisikap,” he added.

According to Secretary Estrella, of the 4,659 ARBs, 2,394 were given land titles under the Support to Parcelization of Land for Individual Titling, 350 ARBs from regular land acquisition and distribution, and 27 ARBs from Executive Order 75 (EO 75). The recipient-ARBs are from the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur.

The SPLIT project is being implemented to improve land tenure security and provide individual land titles to those who have been awarded with collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award, and EO 75 directs all government instrumentalities to identify all idle public lands for acquisition under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to be distributed to qualified beneficiaries.

Marcos also said there would be no progress in the country, so long as the local farmers are in debt.

“Agrarian reform remains an unrealized dream because the emancipation of farmers does not end with the receipt of titles, declaring ownership of the land they are already tilling. They must be unshackled from debt, freed from high cost of inputs, relieved of constraints that impoverish them,” he added.

Marcos said the signing of Republic Act 11953 or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act on July 7, 2023 is instrumental in freeing over 600,000 farmers who have been “held captive by land debt.”

He said the issuance of Executive Order 4 on Sept. 13, 2022, which imposed a one-year moratorium on the payment of amortizations and interest on agrarian debt, “provides farmers that are choked with debt with some financial breathing space at a time when agriculture was battling a fuel and fertilizer crisis.”

“Ngunit ayoko ng Band Aid na solusyon. Ang hanap ko ay permanenteng lunas,” the President said as he reiterated that he signed Republic Act 11953, or New Agrarian Emancipation Act in July last year that freed 600,000 ARBs from debt.

Marcos said the distribution of land titles to ARBs is just the first step in lifting them out of poverty, adding that the government would exhaust all efforts to ease the farmers’ burden.