Land titles awarded to 600 Luisita beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) awarded land titles to 600 farmworker-beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita.

Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) were handed to the farmworker-beneficiaries in a short ceremony in barangay Pando last Monday.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes clarified that it was just an initial distribution of CLOAs as the entire distribution process would take three weeks because of the large number of farmworker-beneficiaries who would be awarded lots.

“Even if we have started to distribute the CLOAs, we are still processing the CLOAs of those who have just recently sworn and filed their Applications to Purchase and Farmers Undertaking, which is required of every beneficiary. Our field facilitators have been working with these farmworker-beneficiaries who have just recently come forward to claim their lot allocations in order to expedite the process,” De los Reyes said.

The CLOAs of 5,800 of the 6,212 beneficiaries have already been registered with the Register of Deeds. More are expected to be registered as beneficiaries come forward to claim their Lot Allocation Certificates and sign their Applications to Purchase and Farmers Undertaking.

Under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, agrarian reform beneficiaries will have to pay for their land within a period of 30 years.

De los Reyes gave assurance that the amount the beneficiaries would pay is affordable.

“The total amount that the beneficiaries will pay for their land over a period of 30 years will be more or less P75,000,” he said.

“For the first three years, Hacienda Luisita beneficiaries will pay only P730 per year or about P61 per month. For the 4th and 5th year, they will pay more or less P1,410 per year or P118 per month. And from the 6th to the 30th year, they will pay more or less P2,770 per year or P230 per month,” the DAR chief explained.

The next move is the setting of boundaries between farm lots. Monuments or boundary stones or muhon will be placed as soon as the land has been cleared of standing crop.

De los Reyes said that at the moment, monuments could not be set because many of the fields are still planted with sugarcane and it would be impossible to set the boundary stones. This would be done once harvesting commences within the next few weeks.