At least 900,000 hectares of private landholdings are slated for acquisition and distribution in the last two years of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said in a report.
The report by DAR Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said that the DAR would focus on acquiring and distributing 961,974 hectares of land from 107,639 landholdings, most of these are private agricultural land.
Plagued by challenges
The report also identified several challenges that have plagued the acquisition and distribution process, among them coming up with the amount needed to buy the mostly private estates through compulsory acquisition, the lack of surveyors, the tedious verification process, uncooperative officials in agencies like the Land Registration Authority (LRA), as well as ironing out technical issues with landowners, some of whom have bucked the agrarian reform program by resorting to the stock distribution option (SDO).
“It’s easy to distribute land that is yours. But the government would have to pay for these lands,” De los Reyes said in an interview on Friday, referring to the 93.58 percent or 900,188 hectares of private agricultural land covered by CARP.
Compulsory acquisition
A large portion of previous acquisitions are government-owned lands, voluntary land transfers, and voluntary offer to sell, De los Reyes said in his report.
“These are the less tedious and less contentious to distribute. Today, however, 62 percent or 596,036 hectares of the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) balance will be covered through compulsory acquisition (CA),” the report added.
The DAR also has to iron out some technical issues with landowners, including the inventory of these private estates that the agency failed to do from 2008-2010, and only resumed when he took over in 2010, De los Reyes said.
The report said that the Land Bank of the Philippines has released the funds for landowner compensation totaling P7.9 billion, representing 2010 and 2011 allocations. An additional P5 billion was budgeted for 2012.
63,755 beneficiaries
The DAR report said that the agency was able to give 111,889 hectares to 63,755 beneficiaries nationwide in 2011. For 2012, the DAR was given P18 billion that would cover 240,247 hectares for distribution this year and 111,000 hectares in 2013.
According to the DAR, some 4.2 million hectares of agricultural land have been distributed to almost 2.5 million beneficiaries from 1987 to December 2010.
No capacity
De los Reyes also assured farmers that “all landholdings covered by CARP would be distributed to farmer-beneficiaries before the term of President Aquino ends in 2016.”
His statement was however disputed by Ian Rivera, convener of the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance in Mindanao, who said that the DAR does not have the capacity to meet its target of redistributing ownership of close to a million hectares of land in four years.
That means about 240,000 hectares per year, Rivera said, adding that since 2009, the DAR’s average LAD performance is between 90,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares.
But De los Reyes said that the “DAR is right on schedule in land acquisition and distribution despite the fact that the remaining lands to be distributed are the more contentious ones and requires a longer and more tedious process to acquire and distribute.”
Landowner compensation
He explained that some 93 percent of the LAD balance involves private agricultural lands, of which 816,491 hectares would require landowner compensation. At least 596,036 hectares would be covered through compulsory acquisition, he added.
According to the DAR’s calculation, the balance of land to be distributed would shrink between 305,678 hectares to 514,311 hectares in 2013. In 2014, the year when the land distribution program expires, the projected balance is between 179,778 hectares to 390,100 hectares.
DAR officials said land distribution in the past had been hampered by the lack of surveyors and the tedious verification process. Regional DAR officials and potential beneficiaries also had to deal with uncooperative officials in agencies like the LRA.
Mass processing
De los Reyes said the DAR has implemented measures to fast-track the processing of these lands, including an agreement with the LRA that would allow the DAR to request the mass processing of documents required from the LRA and the environment department.
The DAR would also bid out the services for the surveys of disputed lands, the same method used in Hacienda Luisita, due to the sheer number of lots, the agrarian reform official added.
Legal challenges
The DAR has to grapple with legal challenges as well, including the conversion of agricultural lands and the stock distribution option. Since the 1990s, the DAR has allowed 13 plantations covering 7,700 hectares to distribute shares of stock instead of land to their tenant farmers under the CARP.
According to data from the DAR, the SDO implemented by 13 estates were met by formal protests, except for two haciendas, one in Iloilo and another in Negros Occidental. The rest, including that of Hacienda Luisita, the biggest plantation to implement the SDO at 4,916 hectares, have been challenged at the DAR. With a report by Ryan D. Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao