DAR Fulfills President’s Promise to Aling Dorita

As promised by no less than President Aquino himself, 63-year-old Dorita Vargas now owns the land she has been tilling for 29 years as a farmhand in Negros Occidental.

Vargas, a single mother of six children, was the latest of thousands of farmworkers who were awarded Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in the first month of the year.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes said Vargas was one of the 13 agrarian beneficiaries who were given land last January 14 from the sugar hacienda formerly owned by Victorino Manalo in La Castellana town.  The CLOA was handed over to Vargas on February 13 in a ceremony held in the DAR Municipal Office.

“I pray that Aling Dorita will take good care of the land awarded to her under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The land is hers, and she is free to use it in whatever way she wishes to,” Delos Reyes said.

Vargas had the privilege of talking with President Aquino when representatives of more than 300 peasants who marched from the provinces to Manila were allowed to meet with the Chief Executive in Malacanang’s Maharlika Hall on June 14, 2012.

“When you won as President, we were so happy because we voted for you,” Vargas told Mr. Aquino, as recounted in a report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “We all voted for you because you came from a good family… Beloved President, you are our only hope of getting our own land.”

Vargas did not miss the chance to reveal how she raised her six children—all girls—after her husband abandoned her and she took over his job in a sugar hacienda in Negros.

It had been 29 years since her husband left her, Dorita told the President.

To support the family, she worked as a farmhand at Hacienda Manalo in La Castellana in Negros Occidental, planting sugarcane, fertilizing the fields, picking weeds, harvesting—for a measly P85 a day.

After she joined a clamor to bring the plantation under CARP in 1995, disaster struck. She was fired and her thatched hut was put to the torch.

“Hayaan mo, Nay, tutulungan ko kayo (Don’t worry, I will help you),” the President said.

To the assembled group, Mr. Aquino, flanked by Cabinet officials, promised to fully implement the program before its expiration, renewing a vow he made when he ran for president.

Delos Reyes explained that Vargas’ struggle for land ownership took years to bear fruit due to complications brought by the “chop-chopping” of land titles, a tactic used by some landowners to evade CARP coverage.

In a report sent to Delos Reyes, the DAR-Provincial Office in Negros said the 10-hectare Hacienda Manalo was subdivided into three titles of more three hectares, with two lots transferred in the names of Venysse Laurel and Lorenzo Manalo, immediately after the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) was passed more than two decades ago.

This transfer prompted the DAR to apply the provisions of Administrative Order No. 8, series of 2012, which provides that current title holders need to be furnished a copy of the Notice of Coverage sent to the original landowner.

Aside from this, there was a need to identify the area of the two new titles which were subject of the original coverage as appearing in the claim folder of the subject landholding.

Delos Reyes explained that chop-chop titles refer to land titles sold piecemeal by the original landowner whose landholdings, usually beyond the five-hectare limit set by law, are covered by agrarian reform.

The problems posed by chop-chop titles prompted the DAR and the Land Registration Authority to sign Joint Memorandum Circular No. 17, which requires the LRA through the Register of Deeds (ROD) to annotate Notices of Coverage in land titles the fact that certain lands are subject to acquisition and distribution under CARP.

The ROD’s annotation on the land titles aims to curb the widespread practice of selling CARP-covered lands even without the requisite clearance from DAR. It also seeks to prevent buyers from invoking the status of innocent purchasers for value due to non-notification of the fact of CARP coverage.

Delos Reyes explained that his administration worked for the approval of the joint memorandum with LRA in consideration of the fact that illegal transfers of CARP-covered landholdings unduly impedes, delays, or suspends the implementation of agrarian reform.

He noted that illegal land transfers, in particular, gives rise to the filing of agrarian law implementation (ALI) cases which include:

• Protests against CARP coverage on the ground of lack of due process
• Cases involving the true identity of the landowner and proper recipient of just compensation
• Determining the proper person/s to send notices regarding CARP coverage
• Filing of belated protests and petitions for exemption, conversion, and/or exclusion, and others.

“The cause of the problem is the lack of an effective means of notification to the world that a parcel of land had been subjected to agrarian reform coverage,” Delos Reyes pointed out.

He noted that potential buyers of land or other interested parties simply rely on the face of Torrens titles which do not reflect the fact of the land’s coverage under CARP or Operation Land Transfer.

He added that vendees and transferees of illegal transfers are able to consolidate ownership by invoking the doctrine of innocent purchaser for value which bars reconveyance.

The DAR-LRA joint memorandum circular, Delos Reyes said, seeks to foster the stability of rights arising from land transactions and to protect the public from purchasing properties which are subject to pending land acquisition and distribution proceedings under CARP.

Under the joint memorandum circular, the Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer (PARO) or any DAR personnel authorized by him may request the ROD for the annotation provided they have proof of service of the Notice of Coverage (under Compulsory Acquisition) or Letter of Acceptance from the landowner (under Voluntary Offer to Sell).

Upon receipt of the request from the PARO, the ROD has the ministerial duty of registering the fact of CARP coverage on the proper Certificate of Title.

The annotation shall subsist until the same is duly cancelled upon the request of the PARO or any DAR personnel authorized by him or by the landowner.

A landowner or the DAR may file a request for the cancellation of the annotation, but such request must be premised only on a final and executory judgment providing:

• The exclusion of the subject landholding from CARP coverage as provided by law, DAR rules and regulations, and jurisprudence;
• The exemption of the subject landholding from CARP coverage under Section 10 of R.A. No. 6657, as amended;
• The declaration of the CARP coverage of the property as null and void; and
• The conversion of the land from agricultural to some other land use as provided by Section 65 of R.A. No. 6657, as amended, and DAR rules and regulations on the matter.
• The final and executory judgment must have been rendered by the appropriate legal authority.