DAVAO CITY (PIA) – – Almost a thousand electronic Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) are set to be turned over to 789 agrarian reform beneficiaries from across Davao Region on Friday, July 7, in time for the simultaneous ceremonial awarding of e-titles nationwide.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Region XI will spearhead the distribution of individual e-titles comprising of 1,207 hectares involving several landholdings situated in Davao City and in the five provinces of the region.
DAR-XI Assistant Regional Director Gay Labad explained that the subdivision of the Collective CLOAs awarded through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), into individual land titles has been realized through the Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) Project.
The SPLIT project, which is being implemented thru World Bank funding, is designed to stabilize the property rights of the ARBs thereby improving land tenure security, productivity and income, ARDO Labad said during the July 5 episode of One Davao Virtual Presser of the Philippine Information Agency Region XI.
The project involves the subdivision of about 1.38 million hectares of CARP-awarded lands with CCLOAs into individual land titles. In Davao Region, about 102,000 hectares of landholdings are targeted for individual titling.
As of June 15 this year, a total of 6,203 E-titles comprising of 7,506 hectares of landholdings, have been distributed to 6,479 ARBs in the region.
The ceremonial awarding of E-titles on Friday at the Arcadia Event Center in Davao City will coincide with the ceremonial signing of Republic Act No. 11953 or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. in Malacañang.
DAR-XI Regional Information officer Jean Dumandan explained that the new agrarian reform law condones all the unpaid amortizations of the principal debt, including interest and surcharges, if any, incurred by the ARBs.
Dumandan said the government will also assume the obligation of ARBs to pay the remaining balance of the direct compensation due the concerned landowners under the Voluntary Land Transfer (VLT) or the Direct Payment Scheme (DPS) amounting to P206,247,776.41 Million.
She said that more than 37,000 ARBs in Davao Region will benefit from the condonation program. “We are very happy that our ARBs will enjoy the ease of burden. Hindi na sila magbabayad. We look forward that this will help boost agricultural production, improve their quality of life and raise their income,” ARDO Labad said. (CLC/PIA-XI)
