YE Farmers reclaiming land

General

The Department of Agrarian Reform launched the Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling Project (SPLIT) in October 2020, which will grant individual titles to collective CLOA holders as mandated under CARP within three years. But land rights groups, like ORKALEFF and KAISAHAN, caution DAR to first ensure that ARBs are not vulnerable to pawning or selling their land and are capable to make their land productive. In Leyte, SPLIT targets 3,000 collective CLOAs awarded to farmers now in their 60s or mid-50s ordeceased. Some may be unable to farm but with heirs who can continue farming their land. It is crucial that these ARBs retain land ownership, especially now with the economic pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic. How will the SPLIT project involve these ageing farmers and their heirs given COVID-19 restrictions for senior citizens and mass gatherings? ORKALEFF and KAISAHAN targets to influence DAR to ensure that ageing ARB members and their heirs are qualified to benefit from the SPLIT project, are not disenfranchised, and understand the repercussions of individual titling under SPLIT on their land rights. Specifically, it targets the following: 1. Local and national criteria and processes for the validation and prioritization of beneficiaries under the SPLIT project are influenced in favor of the qualified ageing ARBs and youth heirs. 2. Ageing ORKALEFF members and youth heirs are not disenfranchised or forced into parcelization by the SPLIT processes. 3. Clearer policies on ARB succession in collective EPs/CLOAs and policy or government directives on the provision of support services to ARB SPLIT beneficiaries are issued. The project will focus on ORKALEFF members in Ormoc City and Kananga and KAISAHAN partner ARB organizations in municipalities of Capoocan and Alangalang in Leyte. Other key actors are DAR, concerned agencies and CSO advocates.