Agrarian Justice On Wheels drives to Quirino province to give free legal assistance to farmers
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in the province of Quirino recently conducted a free legal consultation, counseling, and legal assistance to the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and other residents of barangay La Paz, Saguday, Quirino.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II (PARPO II) Jess Beth G. Quidasol said the activity dubbed as “Agrarian Reform Justice on Wheels (ARJOW)” is a program where DAR lawyers and legal experts personally visit various communities in the countryside to bring the agrarian service closer to the public through free mobile legal clinics.
Quidasol said the department is now in the process of sustaining the ‘zero backlog’ program to avoid the piling up of pending cases.
“The DAR Quirino held free legal consultations, counseling, and legal services to help the ARBs in the communities resolve their problems, issues, and concerns involving lands and other agrarian reform-related cases,” Quidasol said.
“We discussed to them their rights and obligations as farmer-beneficiaries and focused on topics like arbitration and mediation to reduce conflicts developing into court cases,” she said.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudicator (PARAD) Fatima T. Yadao and Legal Chief Caridad Grace Turqueza spearheaded free legal counseling and legal advice among the farmer-beneficiaries.
ARJOW is part of the “zero backlog’ case policy initiated by the DAR Legal Affairs Office (LAO) to provide social justice to the farmers in the country.
Agrarian Justice Delivery (AJD) is one of the three program components and objectives of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) implemented by the DAR, which aims to provide legal support to ARBs in the course of agrarian disputes through alternative dispute resolution such as mediation, and questions in the identification and selection of farmer-beneficiaries, among others.