TACLOBAN CITY -- Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III is expected to visit Eastern Visayas next week to distribute the first batch of individual titles generated under the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR’s) Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project.         

Regional Director Robert Anthony Yu disclosed that 2,591 electronically generated titles (E-titles) covering an aggregate area of 3,922 hectares are to be distributed to 1,839 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) by the Secretary at the Visayas State University-Tolosa Campus auditorium.

Yu explained that through the SPLIT project, landholdings covered by collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) are being subdivided and replaced with individual CLOAs to improve land tenure security and strengthen property rights of the ARBs.

In Eastern Visayas, Yu further disclosed that 220,473 hectares of agricultural lands situated in different parts of the region covered by 17,496 collective CLOAs are included in the World Bank-funded SPLIT project.

He also added that as of press time, about 67,601 hectares have already been validated, while 3,922 hectares have been issued with E-titles.

Meanwhile, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., during a cabinet meeting, ordered DAR to speed up the distribution of lands to potential ARBs. (Jose Alsmith Soria/DAR-8)