Agrarian beneficiaries in Leyte protest vs "undelivered" CLOAS

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines – The Department of Agrarian Reform-Region 8, in its accomplishment report of 2007-2008 claimed to have completed its distribution of certificate of land ownership awards, or CLOAs, to 17,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries or ARBs.

Five years after, or close to a year after typhoon Yolanda devastated Eastern Visayas, however, the ARBs in at least three towns and Ormoc City in Leyte, complained that there were only about a hundred CLOAs distributed.

The ARBs from the towns of Alang-Alang, Barugo and Jaro, and of Ormoc, have been appealing to DAR-8, now headed by Director Shiela Enciso, to distribute the CLOAs now, otherwise they are just "paper beneficiaries" of the department's report five years ago.

The landless farmers have accused the DAR-8 of inaction to their cause, saying they only received repeated promises of recovering the records of distributed CLOAs, which the department claimed to have been lost during the typhoon.

"Bakit hindi pa rin ipinapamahagi ang CLOA namin na registered na pala? Ano ba ang problema, eh government land naman ito?" asked Jean Rollo, farmer leader from Barangay Bukid of Barugo, Leyte.

DAR-8 has been assuring the ARBs that the CLOAs will be released to them, but the latter complained of the "very slow" process, which otherwise could help them speed up their recovery from the Yolanda destruction.

The "inaction" of DAR-8, had prompted the ARBs to put up a signature campaign asking for a congressional investigation on the matter. They said they will ask Representative Teddy Baguilat Jr, agrarian reform committee chair, to intervene in the case of the landless farmers.

The signed petitions to probe the "dead CLOAs" were placed in a cadaver bag that was delivered by farmer-leaders to the Register of Deeds, the DENR, the Land Bank of the Philippines and DAR-8 offices last October 3.

Among the ARBs who carried the cadaver bag were the leader-beneficiaries of the defunct Leyte Sab-A Basin Development Authority as well as those from the Bugho Small Farmers Association of Ormoc, who have been waiting also for the release of their CLOAs.

Florine "Babie" Reyes, project officer of RIGHTS Network, told The Freeman that the ARBs wanted to elevate the case to Congress and wished for the release of CLOAs before the end of this year.

"There are now at least 500 signatures in the petition and we expect more by the end of October," said Reyes, as she quoted the complaints of ARBs over the "very slow action" of DAR-8.