57T hectares available under extended CARP

CEBU, Philippines – After the announcement of the approved five-year extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, the Department of Agrarian Reform-7 said that the timeframe would be enough for them to distribute the remaining 56,711 hectares of agricultural lands in the region.

This was confirmed by Rodolfo Inson, DAR-7 regional director, during the special Kapihan sa PIA yesterday wherein DAR was celebrating the 21st year of CARP.

He said that they will be engaging in more campaigns to help inform the people on the features and the process of the program, and will also be strengthening the three major components of the program - land tenure improvement, agrarian justice delivery and program beneficiaries development.

Land tenure improvement is focused on the redistribution of private and public agricultural lands to farmers and ensuring the tenure of the farmers and the workers.

Attending to agrarian cases which arise from the implementation of the program is given focus in the agrarian justice delivery, which adjudicators say that in spite of the controversies and the protests, a drop in cases has been noticed.

During the forum, representatives from the four provinces of the region were also present to discuss CARP accomplishments in the past years and their goals for the extension.

Here in Cebu, 25,344 hectares of land were already given as of December last year. Inson said that Cebu has a balance of 19,415 hectares of land which will be divided to be given out in the extended years.

 In Bohol, a balance of 6,000 hectares is to be distributed since they already gave out 32,000 hectares out of the 38,000 agricultural lands they have for their beneficiaries.

In Siquijor, there is a remaining balance of 348 hectares while Oriental Negros has the biggest balance with 33,000. — AJ dela Torre/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)