SAN ILDEFONSO, Bulacan -- The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) led by Undersecretary for Foreign Assisted and Special Projects Office (FASPO) Jesry Palmares, together with World Bank (WB) delegates, personally distributed electronic land titles (e-titles) through its “Serbisyong DAR-to-Door” here.

Palmares and WB delegates Benoit Bosquet and Achime Fock, personally handed over five e-titles to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) doorstep to ensure the farmers would receive their land titles.

The five ARB recipients are the Placido siblings namely, Wilson, Felixberto, Leonardo, Alejandro, and Rogaciano. The siblings have been tenants and farmers of the land they have been tilling all their lives.

“We are overflowing with happiness. We thank the government for this program. We never thought that it will be possible to have our own title. We also thank Secretary Conrado Estrella and President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. for speeding up the process,” said Felixberto Placido.

Palmares said the Placido siblings’ land title belonged to a collective certificate of land ownership award (CCLOA). He said the farmers were able to receive their own titles because of DAR’s Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling project or SPLIT Project.

The DAR’s SPLIT Project is funded by the World Bank which extended in the year 2020 a $370-million loan to the Philippines.

The project seeks to fast-track the subdivision of collective land titles covering over 1.3 million hectares of agricultural lands and eventually issue individual land titles to ARBs previously awarded with lands and collective CLOAs under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to benefit a total of 1.1 million farmers.

“Issuing separate titles for each farmer-beneficiary is better because it enables them to have a clear and defined ownership of the parcels of land they are tilling,” Palmares said.

SPLIT National Project Director Joey Sumatra, said under the SPLIT Project, the agency would parcelize the awarded lands covered by a CCLOA.

“Each farmer beneficiary would be given an individual land title based on the actual area or a particular portion of land they are tilling,” Sumatra explained.

The Placidos are among the 35 jubilant ARBs who received their e-titles in a simple ceremony held at the Upig Elementary School covered court after the Dar-to-door e-title distribution. Palmares encouraged the ARBs, not to sell or transfer the lands given to them by the government, as this land would help uplift their lives and their family in the future.

“You have been blessed with lands during this time, as a sign of the government’s concern for the farmers,” Palmares said. (DAR)