DAR, LBP sign agreement to fast track land distribution in EV

By JOSE ALSMITH L. SORIA
September 24, 2019

TACLOBAN CITY – Just few minutes after his installation as the new Regional Director of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Eastern Visayas, Stephen Leonidas entered an agreement with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to hasten processing of claim folders leading to the speedy distribution of landholdings throughout the region covered under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Leonidas, representing DAR in Region-8, and Fiel Pedrosa, manager of the Land Bank of the Philippines -Agrarian Operation Center (LBP-AOC), formally signed the said agreement on September 3 this year at the Oriental Hotel shortly after Leonida’s installation.

In the said document, it is emphasized that in order not to delay the conduct of joint field investigation by the two agencies, advance survey plan (AdSP) shall no longer be accepted as basis in the request for the conduct of the said activity but a duly approved survey plan (ASP).

Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officers (MARPOs) are directed to attach only approved survey plan in submitting claim folders with request for joint field investigation.

Further, MARPOs are likewise directed to finalize the identification of farmer beneficiaries prior to the conduct of the joint field investigation, while ARBs (agrarian reform beneficiaries) Oath, using CARPER LAD Form No. 37, should be available during the conduct of said activity.

It is also emphasized in the agreement that LBP representatives will no longer interfere in the determination of whether or not the landholding/s subject of joint field investigation is/are covered by CARP, as well as in the identification of farmer beneficiaries, for these fall under DAR’s jurisdiction. LBP-AOC is confined only to land valuation.

In the event where the land is eroded, affected by waterlogged, or traversed by a road, but were not reflected in the approved survey plan, correction or amendment of the survey plan will no longer be required, instead, DAR’s geodetic engineers will ipso facto compute the affected area and have them stipulated in the joint field inspection report to be executed by the joint inspection team.

Furthermore, lands with 18 percent slope that are already developed and with history of cultivation shall still be covered and documented.

Moreover, the two agencies likewise agreed to consider for acquisition lands with 18 percent slope though underdeveloped but with interested farmers who are willing to make the land productive.

Meanwhile, survey teams of the different DAR Provincial Offices are directed to submit immediately the survey returns of landholdings scheduled for joint field investigation from September 2019 to March 2020 to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Land Management Service (DENR-LMS) so these could be approved prior to the scheduled dates.

Leonidas, disclosed that these agreements were reached during the levelling off session with the MARPOs in Region-8 on August 20 and 22 this year at the Hotel Costa Brava in this city to thresh out issues that cause delay in the issuance of Memo of Valuation (MOV) and/or Certificate of Deposit (COD) by the LBP-AOC, and eventually fast track CARP implementation.