ILOILO CITY — Agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and organizations conveyed their appreciation to the government for paving the way to acquire various farm machinery and land titles.
The Dumiles ARB Association (DARBA) of San Enrique town was one of the recipients of a hand tractor with trailer amounting to P160,000 and a rice thresher worth P150,000 through the Sustainable and Resilient Agrarian Reform Communities (SuRe ARC) Project of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
Association president Tommy Daborbor said these machineries will help them save an amount instead of spending it to rent equipment.
“May makinarya na kami and ang ibayad namon sa machine, dya run maadto sa kooperatiba namon kag sa iban namon nga mga neighboring (areas) nga wala ti magamit, pwede sanda maka-avail (services of the machine) (We have a machine now. The rent that we’re supposed to pay from the previously rented machine will go to our cooperative. Other neighboring areas who do not have the machinery can also avail of the services),” Daborbor said.
Daborbor added that they no longer need to wait for private machinery to plow their field and separate grains from their chaff and straw, as these machines are efficient and yield higher production capacity.
Meanwhile, Teofila Chiva of Bingawan expressed her joy for receiving some 1.3 hectares of land through the certificates of land ownership award (CLOA).
“Nagapasalamat gid ako kay DAR Secretary Estrella kag kay President Bongbong Marcos, kun sa diin ang iya nga tatay man ang nagtukod sang ini nga programa kag si President Marcos man amo ang nagtapos (I am grateful to DAR Secretary Estrella and President Bongbong Marcos, wherein his father has established this program and President Marcos is able to finish this),” Chiva shared in an interview.
Chiva narrated that the land they cultivated resulted in productive plantations such as rice grains, sugarcane, banana, corn, and coconut.
“Ang amon patubas makabuhi gid sa amon kay sobra kadako ang nabulig sa amon tungod nga ang talamnan malapad kag pati akon nga mga utod makatilaw man sang bugas (Our harvest helped us cope with our living means because the land was extremely vast and my siblings can partake our rice grains),” she conveyed.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who led the recent distribution of land titles and turnover of support services in Passi City, emphasized the continuous distribution and processing of land titles as part of government support to the farmers.
“The distribution of more than 2,900 hectares of land to more than 2,000 beneficiaries here in Western Visayas today is in the pursuit of agrarian reform in our country,” President Marcos said in his message.
“In the same manner, ito nga ‘yung aking sinasabi ang pag-deliver nga mga fertilizer, ng mga makinarya, mga facilities ay makakatulong upang makamtan natin ang ating hinahanap at ating pinapangarap na magandang kinabukasan para sa ating mga magsasaka, para sa ating mga sinasaka, at para sa mga susunod na henerasyon,” the president further said.
President Marcos was accompanied by DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III, DAR Usec Jessry Palmares, and Passi City Mayor Stephen Palmares.
To note, DAR Western Visayas distributed a total of 2,779 titles to 2,143 ARBs from Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo, with a total area of 2903.5234 hectares of agricultural land.
The majority of the distributed titles were derived from the Support to Parcelization for Individual Titling (SPLIT) Project, which aims to fast-track the parcelization of agricultural landholdings covered under the agrarian reform program wherein collective Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CCLOA) were issued to several farmer beneficiaries or their associations over lands that are not collectively farmed.
Apart from the land titles composed of emancipation patent, CLOA, and e-title, a sum of P26,712,987.38 dedicated to farm machineries and equipment and organic fertilizers were distributed to selected ARBOs in the provinces of Capiz, Guimaras, and Iloilo. (AAL/LMLE/PIA Iloilo)
