The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said it has so far distributed around 15,000 certificate of land ownership awards (CLOAs) to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) out of the target 100,000 this year.
DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public forum yesterday that last year, the government distributed 70,000 land titles to ARBs.
Estrella said apart from giving land titles, DAR also provides support services to ARBs such as farm-to-market roads and farm machinery and equipment.
“Overall target under this administration is to distribute over a million titles. Previously, (DAR) can only provide on average (of) around 25,000 titles a year… due to problems like shortage of judicial forms,” Estrella said.
Estrella another bottleneck is in the printing of titles due to the lack of equipment in the Registry of Deeds.
DAR clarified once ARBs receive their titles, the lands are automatically classified as agricultural and will undergo conversion if necessary.
Estrella said ARBs are not allowed to sell their lands received from DAR within a period of 10 years.
DAR said among the areas where the agency distributed land titles recently are Agusan del Sur with 4,000; Palawan, 3,000; and Isabela, 1,000.
