QUEZON CITY -- Former Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Acting Secretary Bernie F Cruz and OIC-Secretary David Erro yesterday, July 4, 2022, jointly hand over the agency’s leadership to Secretary Conrado M. Estrella III after a celebratory mass held at the DAR Central Office gymnasium in Quezon City.
Erro said this will be the signal for the new administration to perform their new role.
“The new secretary will have to cover and distribute a total of 212,000 hectares of agricultural lands and look into a total of 400,000 hectares of problematic lands,” he said.
Erro disclosed that the DAR only receives a yearly budgetary allocation of only P700 million to help the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) of the comprehensive agrarian reform program (CARP).
Cruz thanked the officials and employees of the agency for giving him their trust.
“The DAR is a family. We have experts here at the department, they just need a good leader and I know you can give it to them,” Cruz said to the new Secretary.
Estrella for his part vows not only to look into the welfare of the ARBs but also of its employees.
“I always treat agrarian reform as my second home, and as such, I would like to tell everyone that we will be one family. If before I have looked into the welfare of my constituents in Pangasinan, now I will also attend to my constituents here at the department,” Estrella II assured the DAR employees.
He assured the employees that he understands their plight, especially now, with the effects brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and continuing increase in fuel prices.
Estrella said that he will look into various medical and scholarship programs to help the employees through these trying times.
“In terms of implementing the agrarian reform, we will fulfill the real mandate of the program which is to provide social justice, to free the farmers from the bondage of land. His Excellency President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos has given his commitment to support the department and the program to further improve the lives of the less-privileged farmers,” Estrella said. (DAR)
