The Department of Agrarian Reform has issued guidelines simplifying the land acquisition and distribution process on the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)-covered agricultural lands from the original 291 days to only 112 days to accelerate the distribution of lands to agrarian reform beneficiaries.
DAR Secretary John Castriciones said the guidelines, through Administrative Order 01, series of 2020, are in pursuant to President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to complete the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) of the remaining private agricultural lands, covered by Republic Act 6657, by June 30, 2022.
RA 6657 is an act instituting the CARP where the welfare of the landless farmers and farmworkers will receive the highest consideration to promote social justice and to move the nation toward sound rural development and industrialization, and the establishment of owner cultivatorship of economic-size farms as the basis of Philippine agriculture.
Castriciones said the simplified process are LAD activities rationalized by lumping together activities into major steps, done simultaneously, or a combination of both, to shorten the process to be undertaken by DAR and other CARP-implementing agencies within an estimated period of 112 days.
Under AO No. 7, series of 2011, LAD processes involve a total of 291 days.
The new AO is applicable to private agricultural lands which include landholdings with issued Notice of Coverage (NOC), landholdings with orders/decisions/resolutions denying petitions for coverage and petitions for exemption and exclusion, applications for conversion and conversion/exemption and exclusion orders under revocation which has become final and executor, and landholdings with pending case and/or proceeding involving the implementation of the provisions pursuant to Section 30 of RA 9700.
Castriciones said the AO’s operating procedures for all the LAD process shall be the standard for all landholdings regardless of area.
“The concerned DAR field officers shall introduce appropriate strategies to continue the LAD process in accordance with the procedures and timelines prescribed under this AO,” Castriciones said.
The AO shall take effect 10 days after its publication in two newspapers of general circulation and its registration with Office of the National Administrative Register.*PR/PNA
