Negros Occidental lags in land distribution program
NGOs' intervention to be blamed, says DAR
Bolaņo
Iloilo -- The province of Negros Occidental posted the lowest rate of accomplishment under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) compared to other provinces in Western Visayas.
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) assistant regional director for operation Juan B. Bolaņo Jr. said Negros Occidental has only accomplished 61 percent of the working scope which is 246,464 hectares.
The cumulative accomplishment is 149,943 as of November 2005.
The balance for the number of hectares which is subject for land distribution is 96,521. The problematic number of hectares is 8,500 and the workable balance is 88,021 hectares. Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARB's) in the province is 107,310. The land area in Negros Occidental which is subject for CARP is bigger compared to other provinces.
The province of Antique has the most number of land distributed to the beneficiaries. Of the 49,923 hectares, 49,096 is already accomplished. It is has 98 percent accomplishment. The balance is 827 hectares. Of the 827 hectares, 399 hectares are considered problematic and 428 hectares are workable. The ARB's reached to 14,750.
In the province of Aklan, there are 19,932 hectares of land which is subject to land reform program. The accomplishment reached to 18,331 hectares. The percentage of accomplishment is 92. The balance is 1,601. Of the balance, 350 hectares are problematic and 1,251 are problematic. The ARB's reached to 15,067.
There are 15,965 hectares of land in the island-province of Guimaras which are subject to land distribution. The cumulative accomplishment is 14,218. The accomplishment is 89 percent. It has still a balance of 1,747 hectares of undistributed land. Of the 1,747 balance, 765 are considered problematic and 982 are problematic. There are 9,976 ARBs in Guimaras.
In Iloilo province, there are 65,734 hectares of land for distribution. The cumulative accomplishment is 56,240 hectares. It has a total percentage of accomplishment of 86 percent. The number of lands which remained undistributed reached to 9,464 hectares. Of the 9,464 hectares, 4,118 hectares are workable and 5,376 are considered problematic. There are 35,770 ARB's in Iloilo.
The working scope in Capiz is 62,812 hectares. The cumulative accomplishment is 51,498 hectares. The percentage of accomplishment is 82. The balance for the land which is subject for land distribution is 11,314 hectares. Of the 11,314 hectares, 3,080 hectares are problematic and 8,234 are workable.
There 29,646 ARB's in Capiz.
Bolaņo attributed the delay on the intervention of non-government organizations (NGOs) in the implementation of the land distribution program. He did not specify the name of the NGOs but said they are the group who do not want to follow legal orders.
He added these NGOs are not in any way involved in the program and yet they dip their fingers on it.
"These are the people who have their own agenda, pasabad lang sila," Bolaņo said.
Aside from the NGOs, there are technical and legal matters which affects the implementation of the land distribution program of the government. Bolaņo said the "technical matters are defective." There are lands which are subject for the program but the Land Management Service (LMS) have no records. There are no basis for the relocation survey. The department has to file a petition.
In the legal aspect, there are records of land titles which could not be found in the registry of deeds. The title has to be reconstituted, said Bolaņo.