YEARENDER: DAR sets up ‘boundaries’ under CARP

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) started the year  2014 “setting up boundaries” between lands earlier awarded to farm worker-beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita, the sugar estate in Tarlac owned by the family of President Aquino.

DAR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Anthony Parungao said following the distribution of land titles or certificates of land ownership to Luisita farmers, the next step is the setting up of monuments or boundary stones (muhon) after the land has been cleared of crops.

“The purpose is to delineate the boundaries of the awarded farm lots to avoid disputes and facilitate installation of farmer-beneficiaries,” Parungao said.

A total of 6,212 farm workers have been identified as qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita. Each beneficiary is allotted about 6,600 square meters of farm lot, out of the 4,099 hectares earmarked for distribution.

The awarding of land titles to Luisita farmers took place in the latter part of 2013.

Parungao said even after land distribution, the DAR continuously helps Luisita farmers  take care of their lands by providing support services.

The DAR has also been assisting beneficiaries in setting up organizations so that the department will be more effective in channeling support service programs and resources to beneficiaries.

“We are assisting beneficiaries in their transition to becoming owner-cultivators. We are helping them organize themselves so that they are able to better organize farm production and marketing of their produce,” the DAR official said.

Non-stock corporations

“We helped put up 10 agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations (ARBOs) – in the form of non-stock corporations registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. So far, there are 1,196 farmer members spread out in these organizations,” Parungao said.

This will facilitate access to credit offered by banks, rural financing institutions or micro finance outfits, he added.

Parungao said joining ARBOs is not obligatory.

In addition to helping farmer-beneficiaries organize themselves, the DAR has encouraged the voluntary physical grouping of contiguous lots so that scheduling of use of farming machinery such as tractors would be more rational.

While the agency was busy attending to the needs of Luisita farmers, it allayed their fears that the program of distributing lands would end when the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) law expired in June 2014.

Various quarters, including bishops, wrote the President, seeking his support for an extension of the CARPER law until the end of his term in 2016.

The bishops expressed fears that land distribution by the present DAR administration would not be completed within the timeframe set under the CARPER law.

Parungao said bishops might want to look at Section 30 of Republic Act 9700, which states that land acquisition and distribution may proceed for landholdings with pending proceedings even after June 2014.

He said a DOJ opinion and the 2014 General Appropriations Act bolster this view.

DAR Undersecretary for field operations Jose Grageda assured bishops that the issuance of notices of coverage (NOCs) for landholdings to be acquired under compulsory acquisition is pushing through.

NOCs initiate the compulsory acquisition and distribution of private agricultural lands and their issuance is considered by DAR as one such proceeding referred to by CARPER. 

Parungao also noted that there are legislative initiatives for CARP extension that would remove any doubts on the legal basis of land acquisition and distribution (LAD) after June 30, 2014.

Access to information

Farmer-leaders of the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance, meanwhile, appealed to DAR to enable public access to information on the present state of implementation of its LAD component.

“The appeal for DAR to end its secrecy in handling public information relevant to at least a million peasant families comes amid not only the looming expiry of its LAD operations, but amid a growing trend of land reform reversals and human rights violations across the countryside,” the group said.