The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has created a committee and a technical working group (TWG) to formulate the implementing rules and regulations (IRRs) for Republic Act 11953 or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, writing off P57.557-billion in outstanding debt of 610,054 farmer-beneficiaries.
Secretary Conrado Estrella III maintained the need for a comprehensive IRRs within a six-day deadline after it took effect on July 23.
Estrella directed the committee and the TWG to talk to various agrarian reform communities and to gather vital information.
The DAR said the law would benefit 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and cover 1,173,101.57 hectares of agrarian reform lands.
Under the new law, the government “will also shoulder the balance of the obligations of 10,201 ARBs tilling 11,531.24 hectares of agrarian reform lands, under the voluntary land transfer/direct payment scheme, amounting to P206,776.”
The committee is composed of Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Napoleon Galit and six other agrarian reform officials.
Dr. Fermin Adriano of the Kapatid Angat Lahat Program and Foundation for Economic Freedom lawyer Christian Monsod who was also ex-Commission on Elections chairman and legal counsel for various farmers groups, and Leonardo Montemayor were also in the panel.