Some 400 farmers massed in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City, voicing their demands for the fulfillment of a promise, but the 25th anniversary of the celebrated land-to-the-tiller program yesterday went largely unnoticed.
Farmers on Tuesday slammed President Aquino over his alleged failure to fulfill his promise of distributing lands to them with only a year left before the expiration of the agrarian reform program.
The Department of Agrarian Reform has sought the intervention of the Supreme Court in breaking the impasse over the selection of an accounting firm that would handle the special audit on financial records of Hacienda Luisita Inc. and Centenary Holdings Inc.
The sugar block farming, which the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is promoting among the more than 6,000 soon-to-be beneficiaries of lands in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, allows the family of President Aquino to “maintain control of the estate,” a sugar farm leader said.
An army of farmers covered by the agrarian reform program has been deployed to a massive tree planting campaign spanning 900 hectares of public land, the Department of Agrarian Reform said on Wednesday.
Farmers covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and their organizations need not hire private lawyers for legal services in relation to their farm enterprises, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said.
In their rush to approve the Magna Carta of the Poor, lawmakers put in funding provisions that raised questions from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), President Benigno Aquino III said on Tuesday.
Most were happy, others were overwhelmed, and still others were confused, even angry, as the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Wednesday released the final list of 6,212 beneficiaries of the sprawling sugar plantation owned by the family of President Aquino, which was ordered distributed to its workers by the Supreme Court.
It took eight months but President Aquino’s promise to 63-year-old Dorita Vargas, one of the long-suffering faces of the agrarian struggle, has finally borne fruit.
Despite a warrant for his arrest, Rodolfo Pagatpat, 60, a tenant at the vast Villa Reyes in nearby San Narciso town, on Wednesday joined an estimated 5,000 farmers from the Bondoc Peninsula at the distribution of certificates of land ownership award (CLOA) under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
After sealing an agreement of cooperation with the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) on Monday, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes insisted the move had nothing to do with the calls for his ouster.
A Japanese-funded bridge project of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) at the boundary of Dingalan, Aurora, and General Nakar, Quezon, poses more harm than good to farmers and indigenous peoples in those provinces, two nongovernment organizations said.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has assured the Agta tribe of Quezon province that no member of the indigenous community would be displaced by the construction of the P468-million Umiray Bridge linking Central and Southern Luzon.
