Calubian farmers
receive CLOAs as early Christmas gift from DAR
Thirty-one
tenants in an hacienda in Barangay Engage in Calubian, Leyte
received individual Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs)
from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). |
By
JOSE ALSMITH L. SORIA
December 15, 2022
CALUBIAN, Leyte –
Thirty-one agricultural tenants in an hacienda here received an
early Christmas gift from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
when their individual land titles were handed to them on Friday
making them now owners of the land they are tilling.
Sixteen days before
Christmas, Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officer (MARPO) Maximo
Castañeda Jr. distributed the 31 individual Certificates of Land
ownership Award (CLOAs) to the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs)
in a simple ceremony in Barangay Enage where the subject landholding
is situated.
Castañeda disclosed that
the CLOAs covered a combined area of 39.9546 hectares.
He further disclosed that
the awarded lots are part of the 58-hectare hacienda owned by
Caridad Enage covered under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program’s (CARP’s) Land Acquisition and Distribution component.
Widower Romeo Cuizon, 67,
received the maximum three hectares an ARB could avail.
Cuizon shared that he
started working in the said hacienda when he was only 15 years old
helping his tenant-father until he himself became one of the tenants
too.
According to him, “As
gratitude for this blessing, I will donate 2,000 square-meter for
our association’s office/hall.”
Presently the Enage
Agrarian Reform Farmer Beneficiaries Association’s (EARFBA’s) center
stands temporarily in a private lot which can be evicted anytime.
Edgardo Juntilla, 56,
recipient of a 1.1812-hectare lot, shared that “I am happy, and I am
aware of my obligation to pay tax.”
Widow, Maria Maloloy-on,
50, a mother of three and one of the six female- beneficiaries
shared that she became tenant of Enage in 1989, when she and her
husband started working in the hacienda.
According to her, they did
not believe when someone from DAR told them that they would soon own
the lot they were tilling. “I was surprised when I was awarded with
1.0912 hectares,” Maloloy-on added.
It was learned from
Castañeda that 10 of the 31 ARBs are former rebels. Providing land
to the landless gives these former rebels the opportunity to
livelihood, which is DAR’s contribution to End Local Communist Armed
Conflict (ELCAC), a whole-of-nation approach to address insurgency
in our country, said Castañeda.
The beneficiaries
applauded when Castañeda announced that per Executive Order No. 4 of
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., payment of their land
amortizations is suspended for one year.
They applauded lauder when
Castañeda shared that there is a priority bill of the Marcos
Administration which, when approved, ARBs will no longer pay
amortizations.