Incoming Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III on Saturday said he will immediately iron out issues involving the Collective Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CCLOA) to farmer-beneficiaries of the government’s agrarian reform program.
In a radio interview with party-list Rep. Rowena Niña Taduran, Estrella, himself a nominee of the ABONO party-list group in the House of Representatives, said that the subdivision of lands could be facilitated through the help of local government officials who must mediate among the farmer-beneficiaries.
Estrella noted that although some beneficiaries have received their award certificates, they still could not occupy the land due to some ambiguities in the arrangement.
Estrella said local officials could come in handy to resolve the problems.
He also said some farmer-beneficiaries have failed to pay the amortization for the land awarded to them while the payment schedule usually not updated.
He noted that although the government was subsidizing part of the payment, still some farmers still failed to pay. Worse, they even have mortgaged the property to other persons.
Estrella batted for condonation of the farmer-beneficiaries arrears, the cost of updating the amortization matrix might even be greater that the value of the arrears.
“In that case, let us just issue the titles to the beneficiaries,” he added.
Estrella believed that the government can use the soft loan granted by the World Bank to condone the unpaid amortization of the farmers. The soft loan amounting to P24.6 billion was originally earmarked to hasten the process of subdividing and titling of 1.3 million hectares of agricultural lands under the CCLOA.
In the same interview, Estrella denied that there was a promise to lower the price of rice to P20.00 per kilo next year.
“I’m not dampening the hopes of the people, but I will not sugarcoat it. Due to the spikes in the prices of fuel and fertilizer, we might find it difficult to attain (the P20-rice price,” said Estrella.