By Christine Cudis/Philippine News Agency
MANILA — Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary John Castriciones on Thursday called on the department’s central and field offices to resolve all pending cases before 2022.
“DAR has been hard at work to respond to the needs of our farmer-beneficiaries and the directives of President Duterte,” Castriciones said in his statement released to the media.
For the first semester of 2019, a total of 905 cases have been resolved by the DAR Adjudication Board, while 9,896 cases were resolved by the Field Offices.
The Cordillera Administrative Region and Region 2 (Cagayan Valley) are the top performers with a perfect accomplishment rate of 100 percent, followed by Region 1 (Ilocos) with 93.75 percent, Region 4-B (Mimaropa) with 90.9 percent, and Region 7 (Central Visayas) with 78.98 percent.
In total, the DAR’s overall accomplishment for this semester is 54.9 percent, receiving a total caseload of 4,187 cases, and resolving 2,297 legal agrarian cases from the same.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) has commended the DAR’s efforts in providing swift service to the country’s farmers.
In its letter dated July 4, 2019, the regulatory agency lauded the DAR for the streamlining and improvement of its critical services.
The agency’s compliance with the Republic Act No. 11032, known as the “Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018” is one of DAR’s steps to ensure easier and faster delivery of quality services to the public.
A Zero-Backlog program has been launched in 2019 through DAR’s Agrarian Legal Sector to tackle cases that have accumulated during the previous administrations.
The DAR’s Land Use Cases Committee (LUCC) was formed this year to act on all applications for land use conversion or exemption from the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
“We believe that more than any recognition, the satisfaction of our farmer-beneficiaries continues to be DAR’s best reward,” Castriciones said.
In the letter to Undersecretary Lucius Jun-Jun G. Malsi of DAR’s Finance, Management and Administration Office, Director-General Ernesto V. Perez, officer-in-charge of ARTA, “commend(ed) the efforts of DAR” to speed up and simplify its processes.
“We commend the efforts of DAR in implementing changes in support of the implementation of R.A. 11032 or the ‘Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Delivery of Government Services Act of 2018.’” Perez said.
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