The Department of Agrarian Reform distributed 4,850 Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA) to 2,542 Negrense agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) at the Cadiz City Arena in Cadiz City on Friday, July 7, in time with the signing of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act that condones agrarian debts in the country.
About 3,200 Negrenses, including government officials, attended the ceremonial distribution of CLOAs to the ARBs by two DAR offices in Negros Occidental.
The 4,800 CLOAs cover 2,452.27 hectares of agricultural land in Negros Occidental, the DAR announced.
The event was in time with the signing of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at the Kalayaan Hall of Malacañan Palace.
Republic Act 11953 or the “New Agrarian Emancipation Act,” will write off loans of more than 600,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries worth over P57 billion.
DAR-Western Visayas Director Sheila Enciso, in her speech in Cadiz, said that the law includes the 2,542 ARBs who received their CLOAs.
She added that of the 610,054 ARBs in the country who will benefit from the new law, about 134,000 will come from Negros Occidental.
The law will also include the ARBs in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) of the Department of Agriculture (DA), to give them access to government support services given to farmers.
Enciso said that the ARBs in Negros must create an association in order to apply for this agricultural support services from the government.
Task Force Mapalad (TFM), a nationwide federation of farmers and farm workers, welcomed the signing of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, a law condoning all principal and interest of loans arising from the award of agricultural lands under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) as of Dec. 31, 2022.
However, it also urged the president to fix some loopholes in the law that would cover only ARBs as of Dec. 31, 2022.
TFM stressed that it would be most fitting that the law would ultimately cover all ARBs, including those who become beneficiaries of beyond the Dec. 2022 cut-off date.
TFM argued that the cut-off date excludes at least 500,000 farmers and farm workers entitled to 500,000 hectares of land who are awaiting their CLOAs, or have not yet been installed in landholdings covered by CARP.
To ensure that the ARBs would control the land and make it productive, TFM also asked Marcos to institute a prohibition on the sale or transfer of ownership of the land after the issuance of the certificate of condonation under RA 11953.
As it is, the President is eerily silent on this provision, which should be mandatory in order to stop the selling of land and their mortgaging to the usual landowners who would then reconsolidate the farms under their control, TFM said.*