Mandated to finish CARP under Pres. Duterte’s term
TACLOBAN CITY- Over 63,000 hectares of agricultural lands in the region are still subject to be distributed to farmers under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
And of this number, more than 42,900 hectares are in Leyte, Joel Alsmith Soria, regional information officer of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), said in an interview.
This year marks the 30th year of CARP implementation.
Soria said that they are under instructions to distribute the remaining 63,141 hectares to benefit 27,452 farmer-beneficiaries within the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Since the start of the CARP implementation in 1988, DAR in the region has distributed 431,972 hectares, benefitting 187,813 farmers.
For Eastern Visayas, about 495,113 hectares of lands have been identified to be place under CARP with 215,266 farmers as targeted beneficiaries.
Each farmer is entitled to receive a maximum of three hectares under CARP.
“During his recent visit to the region, Undersecretary (for field operations) Karlo Bello mentioned that DAR should finished the land distribution within the term of Pres. Duterte,” Soria said.
He said that there were issues confronting the implementation of CARP reason why 30 years after it was first implemented, there are still lands remaining to be distributed.
Among these issues cited by Soria include the resistance of some land owners to place their lands under CARP who filed petitions and no notice of coverage received by the landowners.
Soria said that they are working to address these concerns for their office to eventually distribute the remaining 63,141 hectares of land.
Based on their records, Biliran has 100 percent accomplishment which means all its 10,982 hectares targeted under the program have been distributed which benefited 4,774 farmers.
Leyte has the biggest agricultural lands that were distributed for the past 30 years with 182,695 hectares out of 225,687 hectares identified.
About 79,432 farmers have received their certificates of land ownership across the province.
Soria said that of the remaining 63,141 hectares of lands, the biggest is in Leyte with 42,993 to potentially benefit 18,692 farmers.
Following Leyte is the province of Northern Samar with 9,349 hectares still to be distributed which could benefit 4,064 farmers.
In Eastern Samar, 3,386 hectares are to be distributed which could benefit 1,471 farmers while in Samar, 5,787 hectares remain undistributed with about 2,526 farmers to benefit and in Southern Leyte, 1,625 hectares of land are still be placed under CARP and could benefit 706 farmers.
By: Joey Gabieta
