TACLOBAN CITY - The Department of Agrarian Reform in Eastern Visayas revealed that for the past 19 years, it has distributed more than 300,000 hectares of agricultural lands that benefited over 195,900 farmers.
Joel Alsmith Soria, regional information officer, said that based on their projected agricultural land that could be subject for distribution under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of the government, the land distributed to the farmers represented around 74 percent accomplishment.
“This is rather a satisfactory performance in so far as the implementation of the CARP in the region,” Soria told Leyte Samar Daily Express.
Based on the projection of the DAR-8, around 432,777 hectares covering in all of the region’s six provinces, the agency has so far distributed 319,604 hectares of agricultural lots that benefited 195,965 farmers who were issued of their own land titles.
For the past 19 years of the implementation of the CARP, 133,801 hectares out of the projected 232,192 hectares in Leyte were placed under the program which benefited 96,091 farmers. In Biliran, 12,333 hectares of land were distributed to 9,788 farmers; 16,634 hectares of agricultural lands in Southern Leyte were distributed to 10,491 farmers.
Meantime, in Samar province, 61,314 hectares of land were given to 27,553 farmers and 21,879 farmers were given their own lots covering 49,481 hectares in Northern Samar. In Eastern Samar, of the 46,041 hectares of lands placed under the program, 30,145 farmers were given their own land titles.
The DAR regional office has no available data as to how much was paid by the government to land owners in the course of the implementation of the program for the last 19 years now.
The funds allocated, around P100 billion, for the CARP was sourced from the sequestered alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their associates.
It was learned from Soria that with the decision of the Arroyo Administration to extend the implementation of the program for another ten years, their agency has projected around 130,000 hectares of land that could be placed under the program.
Earlier, President Macapagal-Arroyo announced her plan to extend the implementation of the program for more 10 years to push the development of more agrarian reform communities nationwide. The program is to end by next year.
Zenaida Parama, in-charge of the inventory of lands that could be subjected for land distributions under the program, said that unlike in the first years of the CARP implementation, resistance among land owners appears to have waned.
“This helps, no doubt, for us to implement the program hassle-free. Before, there was strong resistance among landowners, especially the hacienda owners. But not now, “she said.
But she admitted that they have several cases wherein a farmer-beneficiary sells his right to others.
Parama said that this situation defeats the very purpose of the program which gives landless farmers a land for them to till and own.
“We have several pending cases regarding this issue,” she said, without giving the necessary figures.
Under the program, agricultural land of five hectares can be subject for land distribution unless the landowner has children who are actually tilling the lands. Farmers that benefit the program are given a maximum three hectares of land. |
