PAGADIAN CITY 02 Aug (PIA) – The Department of Agrarian
Reform (DAR) celebrated its 3rd Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) as per Republic Act 9700 of 2009, better known as the CARPER law. This
law contains an extension of the budget for CARP especially the Land
Acquisition and Distribution (LSAD) program for five years from July 1, 2009.
Zamboanga del Sur DAR Provincial Agrarian Reform
Officer Engr. Raymundo Bernardo in a press conference held recently at his
office said, the law clearly states that the support services will still be provided to the CARP
beneficiaries.
Nationwide, we still a balance of almost a
million hectares of private agricultural lands which requires the necessary reforms
to complete the acquisition and distribution to landless farmers, he said.
In Zamboanga del Sur, Bernardo disclosed, there are a
total of 65,382 hectares mostly private agricultural lands of different types
of acquisition to include non-private agricultural lands or government own
lands turned over to us for distribution under CARP.
CARP started in 1988 as per RA-6657, this was actually a 10-year program
implemented by DAR based on the mandate
of the Philippines Constitution. This was extended for another 10 years from
1998-2008, to distribute the balances, mostly private agricultural lands. There
were even pressures from the Civil
Society Organizations (CSO) that there are some imbalances in the distribution mostly of which are contentious and problematic lands we need to
locate within the five year, Bernardo said.
He said, during the recent State of the Nation Address
(SONA) of President Benigno Aquino III, he was emphatic that all lands under Phase 3-A should be issued
with the notice of coverage up to December 2012. This means that all lands 10
hectares and above are covered with this phase and the issuance of notice has started
July, this year.
As stated also by President Aquino, we will also be
covering 5 hectares and below 10 hectares by next year under Phase 3-B. The
issuance of notices will commence on July 1, 2013, Bernardo added.
Meanwhile Engr. Josephine Sisican, chief Beneficiaries
Development and Coordination Division reported, that as of July 2012 a total of
P363.144 Million ARCP II projects have been approved. These projects are rehabilitation/ improvement of Farm to Market
Roads (FMR), Barangay Health Stations, road repair and construction, warehouses
and solar dryers distributed in 17 municipalities in the province.
ARCP II is being funded by Asean Development Bank (ADB)
with counterpart from the local government units (LGUs.)
PARO Bernardo added, that once we give the
beneficiaries a piece of land through the CARP more services will come in. DAR
alone can’t do this, “we always work
with our project partners which is the LGUs, the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries
(ARBs), as well as the NGOs and CSOs operating in the province,” Bernardo
emphasized. We are very lucky because there are still active NGO’s who are supporting
our program, he said.
He further said, DAR focuses more on the natural
practice system as well as the organic farming system. The trending today, is
to do away with the use of in-organic, which usually used chemicals and
pesticides. “We always adopt programs implemented or pushed by the Department
of Agriculture (DA) through the Integrated Pest Management and other systems,”
said Bernardo. (CAL/PIA9).