Duterte expected at rites to distribute 60,000 land titles in Mindanao

DAVAO CITY—President Rodrigo Duterte is leading on Friday night (Aug. 2) a ceremony to distribute nearly 60,000 land reform recognition titles to beneficiaries from five regions in Mindanao.

The 58,387 certificate of land ownership awards (Cloa) covers 102,727 hectares of land, according to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

The titles were turned over by the Land Bank of the Philippines to the DAR for distribution to more than 60,000 beneficiaries.

In the Davao region, at least 1,361 Cloas would be given to 1,709 beneficiaries covering 1,452 hectares.

Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones said the ceremony would “boost the confidence of farmers” on the government’s agrarian reform program.

Nationwide, Castriciones said there are at least 200,000 emancipation patents for 350,000 hectares of land set to be turned over by the Land Bank to the DAR, which would distribute these in ceremonies in Luzon and the Visayas.

One of the beneficiaries would be the family of Sabrina Parasan-Tambis, from General Santos City, who said her father would finally get a title to a three-hectare land that he tills.

Alex Ligo, a farmer fro Kapalong town, Davao del Norte, said he had been waiting to have a land title for so long.

He said an American, who had bought the land that his family tilled, encouraged him to apply as beneficiary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. Ligo’s family was awarded the land in 2018.

In a briefing paper, the DAR said having Cloas meant farmers would have unrestricted exercise of ownership and control of their land. It was the “penultimate step” to land reform, the DAR added.

The award of titles, the department said, was the last step in the implementation of CARP and leads to the next step which is support services to beneficiaries.

Duterte had promised to beat rebels in the area of land reform, telling people to stop believing rebel claims of freeing farmers from bondage. In many areas, however, landlord resistance continued to frustrate land reform and fuel rebellion, which is rooted mainly on an unequal distribution of wealth in the countryside through the control by a few families of large tracts of land./tsb