Farmers’ group seeks probe on DAR-World Bank SPLIT project

MANILA, Philippines — A farmers’ group yesterday urged Congress to investigate the implementation of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and World Bank (WB)’s Support to Parcelization of Land for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project.

Former agrarian reform secretary and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairman emeritus Rafael Mariano said lawmakers should determine if the SPLIT project contributes to the distribution of land to farmer-beneficiaries.

Mariano added that the lawmakers should exercise their oversight function and probe the SPLIT project.

He noted that the project, launched in January 2020, is financed through a $370-million (P20.4-billion) loan from the World Bank to subdivide Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award covering over 1.3 million hectares of property turned over earlier to about 750,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

“The SPLIT project is funded through a loan from the World Bank, and we Filipinos will pay for this. We need to see the effect of this project,” KMP chairperson Danilo Ramos said.

Ramos added that for this year, DAR has allocated P6.1 billion or 42 percent of its P14.3-billion total budget for the SPLIT project’s implementation.

“SPLIT is now the cornerstone of every program and project under the DAR. While the agency is busy splitting collective land titles for the individual proprietorship of ARBs, we also want to know the status of big landholdings and estates under dispute that are pending for distribution to farmer-beneficiaries. Case in point is Haciendas Tinang, Murcia and Balincanaway in Tarlac,” he said.

Vast landholdings across the country still need to be distributed as these are still locked under private ownership with decades-long unresolved land cases pending at the DAR, according to Ramos.

The DAR recently created the SPLIT project composite team to conduct the WB Gap Analysis Study to determine appropriate interventions.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrad Estrella III said his agency wants to avoid seeing even one farmer being forced to pawn or sell their farm lot as it will defeat the purpose of the SPLIT project.

Ramos maintained that free land distribution and a comprehensive support services program and not SPLIT will be effective in uplifting the status of ARBs.