By Christine Cudis/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) recently issued guidelines and procedures on the parcelization of landholdings with Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CCLOA) to stabilize ownership, tenureship, and control of the lands awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB).
Secretary John R. Castriciones said pursuant to Section 25 of the Republic Act 5567, as amended by Section 10 of RA 9700, the DAR is mandated to immediately undertake the parcelization of CCLOAs over lands that are not collectively farmed or operated in an integrated manner.
Castriciones added that in the past decades, many landholdings were awarded to ARBs under a collective and non-subdivided form of ownership wherein qualified beneficiaries may opt for collective ownership, through farmers’ cooperatives, associations or some other form of organizations for the issuance of CCLOAs.
“There are reports from the field implementers and civil society organizations regarding disputes or controversies among ARBs with existing CCLOAs due to boundary conflicts, inclusions, and exclusions of ARBs, and other conflicts resulting to the splitting of groups into sub-groups and co-owners opting for individual ownership,” he said.
He said there are landholdings covered with CCLOAs, which have been acquired and distributed under financing from the Land Bank of the Philippines, where the government has not been able to collect land amortization, while the ARBs have not been able to fully pay the lands for them to become full owners, due to the difficulty in generating the Land Distribution and Information Schedule.
Castriciones said through parcelization, the DAR will subdivide and determine the exact meters and bounds of the areas, allocate lots for each ARB in a CCLOA, determine common use areas and portions with common service facilities, and establish areas capable of being alienated and disposed of by the government.
CCLOAs refer to existing and registered certificates of land ownership award issued by the DAR to farmers’ cooperatives, associations, other organized groups, or group of ARBs who are not yet formally organized.
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