DAR vows to distribute remaining 1 M land titles

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) will distribute the remaining one million land titles to farmer-beneficiaries before the term of President Marcos ends in June 2028.

This is the commitment of Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III, who said that the DAR hopes to distribute 100,000 land titles this year and expects to double the number by 2025.

“Before we took over, the yearly land titles being distributed were only about 15,000. When we assumed office, from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2022, we were able to release more than 22,000 land titles in just six months,” Estrella told The STAR over the weekend.

During a Senate budget deliberation in 2022, the DAR committed to distribute at least 50,000 titles per year.

“In the next budget hearing in September 2023, I informed the senators that we were able to distribute 70,000 titles and we exceeded the target. This year, we are targeting about 100,000, which is almost doubled,” Estrella said.

He said the agency was able to identify and address solutions to hasten the distribution of land titles.

“The problem was the shortage in the judicial forms for land titles as many are in the pipeline and for printing,” he said.

Estrella said the Land Registration Authority and the Registry of Deeds do not have the capacity to print a large volume of forms for the certificates of land titles.

“We plan to outsource, which can be authorized by the government. We can distribute about 200,000 titles a year,” he said.

Once the printing of the certificates of land titles is addressed, the distribution of the remaining one million can be completed within the administration of Marcos, Estrella said.

He has directed the allocation of a government-owned property to 44 Aetas in Boracay, who were displaced by the cancellation of the collective certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) issued by the previous administration.

DAR Undersecretary for legal affairs Napoleon Galit said Estrella issued the directive immediately after the owners of the 1,282-square-meter property, which the Aetas had been occupying, reclaimed the land on March 26.

Galit said Estrella has expressed concern over the displacement of the Aetas, who were among the indigenous peoples granted CLOAs during the previous administration.

“DAR will extend all assistance and support services to all our agrarian reform beneficiaries,” Galit said.

He said the Aetas, who were members of the Boracay Ati Tribal Association, preferred to have the property divided among them, with each getting 30 square meters of land. –