The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has distributed computerized land titles (c-titles) to 300 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Central Luzon on Wednesday.

The regionwide c-titles distribution held at the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center here is under the DAR’s Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project.

DAR Regional Director James Arsenio Ponce said the SPLIT project intends to fast-track the land subdivision or parcelization of Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CCLOAs) of about 1.368 million hectares of land nationwide.

“Ang SPLIT project po ay funded ng World Bank para po ‘yung mga CCLOA ay maparcelize natin at maisyuhan po siya ng individual titles. Individual c-title na po ang ating ilalabas, ang purpose po nito is para maproteksyunan at para po ma-affirm natin ang property rights ng ating ARBs (The SPLIT project was funded by World Bank so that the CCLOA be parcelized to issue individual titles. We will release individual c-titles. The purpose of this is to protect and affirm the property rights of our ARBs),” Ponce said.

A total of 455 hectares of land were distributed to ARBs in the region which is part of the available 34,000 hectares of land.

One of the recipients of the c-title is 43-year old Randy Carpio of Barangay Magumbali, Candaba, this province, who received 22,531 square meters of land.

Carpio said the project is a big help to farmers like him who no longer need to pay a certain amount in cultivating the lands.

“Dati, nagbu-buwis lang kami roon sa may-ari ng lupa. Ngayon, natutuwa kami at nabigyan kami ng sarili naming titulo, mayroon na kaming masasabi na sarili namin ‘yung lupa (Before we pay lease rental to the landowners. Now, we are happy that we were given own titles. We now have lands which we can say our own),” Carpio said.

DAR Secretary Bernie Cruz, who led the distribution of land titles, asked the ARBS not to sell the lands and instead make them more productive.

“Sana pagyamanin nila, pagtulung-tulungan nilang maging productive yung lupa para yung food security ng bansa mapanatili natin, at hindi tayo maging import-dependent (I hope that they would nurture the land and help each other to make it productive to ensure the country’s food security and not to become import-dependent),” Cruz said. (PNA)