QUEZON CITY (PIA) - The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is temporarily excluding more than 100,000 hectares of landholdings covered under 13,604 Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CCLOAs) found to have potential overlapping ancestral issues in connection with the implementation of the Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project.

DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III has alerted field implementers of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) to be wary of lands suspected of having overlapping issues between agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and indigenous communities in pursuit of their task of subdividing CCLOAs.

National SPLIT project director and DAR Assistant Secretary for Policy, Planning and Research Office Engr. Joey Sumatra advised all field CARP implementers to exclude all lands with potential overlapping issues until the DAR and the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) issue the guidelines through a joint administrative order.

Sumatra has provided all field CARP implementers a list of 13,604 land titles, covering a combined area of 109,223 hectares nationwide, for their guidance.

Among the 15 DAR-recognized regional geographical areas, Davao (Region XI) has the most number of collective CLOAs with overlapping issues at 3,996, covering a combined area of 32,548 hectares, followed by Soccsksargen (Region XII), with 2,718 titles covering 24,691 hectares, and Northern Mindanao (Region X), with 2,281 titles covering 20,298 hectares. (MVMV, PIA-CPSD with information from DAR)