The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) pilot-tested for three (3) days the Resettlement Policy Framework (RPF) under the Support for Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling Project (Project SPLIT) in Nueva Vizcaya consulting the affected agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in resettlement areas on their current issues, concerns and situation regarding the implementation of the Project SPLIT.
Project SPLIT aims to improve the security of tenure and strengthen the property rights of ARBs by accelerating the subdivision of Collective Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CCLOAs) into individual titles to be re-awarded to beneficiaries who are co-owners of the project-covered landholdings.
The said activity is part of the Environmental and Social Management Framework of the Project SPLIT. It aims to provide affected people with compensation measures for the loss of assets and assistance to improve their livelihood and living standards.
The assessment made of the potential environmental and social risks and impacts provided an opportunity for SPLIT implementers to examine project management measures to avoid negative impacts, identify ways of improving the project planning, design, and implementation, and seek opportunities to enhance the positive impacts of the Project.
The pilot testing was held in Barangay Yabbi, in the town of Dupax del Norte where DAR officials and staff consulted with the ARBs on their current issues, concerns, and ordeals in the resettlement areas and addressed these immediately.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II Neil Lumauan said the pilot testing aims to provide the implementers with common guidance to assess and manage the resettlement impacts of the project and minimize physical and economic displacement of Project Affected Persons (PAPs).
He added that the activity would help them provide compensation measures for the loss of assets and assistance with the livelihood and living standards of the displaced PAPs and test the applicability of the RPF for the displaced farmers.
“This activity will also set the tone for finalizing and fine-tuning the RPF and be united in facing the challenges and resolving them through various approaches,” Lumauan said.
SPLIT Project covers around 139,000 CCLOAs involving 1.38 million hectares of CCLOA landholdings located in 77 provinces and 1,252 municipalities: landholdings that were supposed to be subdivided among around a million ARBs when the titles were issued in the ‘90s.
Because these collective titles remained unsubdivided for more than 20 years now, several issues have arisen in these CCLOAs, like boundary conflicts, susceptibility to encroachment by non-beneficiaries, impediments in land amortization payments and second-generation land transfers for heirs of deceased ARBs, among others. These issues negatively impacted the ARBs’ ownership of their awarded lands, leaving them eventually holding insecure and unstable property rights.
