LAS PIÑAS CITY, (PIA) -- The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is working double time in its effort to fast-track the subdivision of collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs), targeting at least 157,000 hectares of agricultural land for field validation in the second semester of the year.

In a news release issued Saturday, Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III said accelerating the subdivision of the collective CLOAs into individual titles through the Support to Parcelization of Land for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project would help empower farmer-beneficiaries as it enables each of them to direct their individual aspirations as new landowners.

“It will also help improve the farmer-beneficiaries’ security of tenure and strengthen their property rights,” Estrella said.

The 2nd Semester 2022 target under the SPLIT Project shows that it represents about 42 percent of the 378,293 hectares that were subdivided over the past three semesters, from January 1, 2021 up to June 30, 2022.

“Once the collective CLOAs are parcelized into individual titles, they will be re-awarded to beneficiaries who are co-owners of the covered landholdings,” he said.

Estrella described the second-semester field validation target as an indication of the sense of urgency to get the job done within the term of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s administration

The remaining workable balance has been set at 1,002,485 hectares.

Assistant Secretary for Field Operations Joey Sumatra said the field validation targets for each of the 80 Provincial Project Management Offices are based on “the updated workable balance less the accomplishments for the year 2021 and the first semester of this year.”

“The targets were anchored with the collective CLOA Inventory System as of July 14, 2022,” said Sumatra, who is also the national director for the SPLIT project. (PIA-NCR)