A total of 2,013 farmers in Leyte received their much awaited land titles from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) recently
Coinciding with the signing of the memorandum of agreement by various organizations inthe creation of a task force that will work to hasten the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in Ormoc, former DAR-8 regional director Narciso Nieto assisted by current egional director Luciano Mercado handed out over 685 individual and collective certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) and emancipation patents to said farmer-beneficiaries.
Nieto, who is now bureau director of the Bureau of Land Development in DAR central office, represented Undersecretaries Efren Moncupa and Virgilio delos Reyes in this activity and promised the farmers to bring the issues to the DAR management for appropriate action.
However, he advised the farmers to segregate the problems that need action at the municipal, provincial, regional and central levels for easier and faster resolution.
According to Mercado, thew titles distributed covered an aggregate area of 2,819 hectares situated in the cities of Ormoc and Tacloban and in 33 other Leyte municipalities.
Mercado added that the government is fast-tracking the land distribution aspect of CARP through the Salinlupa program strategy of the present administration.
And, with the creation of the Task Force Ormoc, Mercado hopes that agrarian reform implementation here and in the neighboring towns would move at a much faster pace, to eventually meet the deadline set under the law.
Meanwhile, representatives from 10 government agencies including the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) an the Philipipe Nationla Police (PNP), two non-government organizations (NGO) three people's organizations (POs)three landowners associations and the local government unit of Ormoc formalized the signng of the MOA agreeing to pool their services to assist, implement orders and issuances and resolve issued in accordance with the laws in order to hasten CARP implementation, particularly in fast-tracking land distribution to the farmer beneficiaries.