Soldiers, Bayanihan Team facilitate activities for farmers

From the Philippine News Agency (Jun 25): Soldiers, Bayanihan Team facilitate activities for farmers

Troops from the 11th Infantry (Lapu-Lapu) Battalion of the Philippine Army based in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental have facilitated activities in recent months to benefit farmers under the government’s land reform program.

These include the awarding of Certificate of Land Ownership Awards to 2,066 farmers, the giving of certificate of stewardship contract to 712 farmers, application of Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title to 201 farmers, release of emancipation patent to 288, conduct of resurvey/documentation to 1, 201 farmers, the petition for inclusion and exclusion to 180 CLOA holders and legalized crop sharing to132 farmers.

The farmers and their families have been waiting practically all their lives to be able to proudly till their own piece of land, a media release from the battalion said.

Lt. Col. Wilfredo Isaac, the 11th IB Commander, stressed that his unit seriously tackled Agrarian Reform issues that foment insurgency in the countryside.

He believes that if the root causes of insurgency such as land reform and poverty will be addressed effectively and efficiently through the convergence of concerned stakeholders, peace and security can easily be achieved, the news release said.

More than 2,000 farmer beneficiaries in central Negros Island received their CLOAs.

Among the new CLOA holders, Valentino Paunal, 72, from Barangay Macagahay, Moises Padilla in Negros Occidental surfaced as the longest waiting CLOA aspirant.

For 50 years, his family still lived on a borrowed piece of land not knowing when the landowner would expel them from the plantation.

In a few months since Bayanihan Team arrived in the barangay, the old couple among others, finally received their CLOAs from the DAR. The land they titled for decades was finally theirs.

The Bayanihan Team (BT) activities in the 11th IB started early in 2011 in Guihulngan City following the implementation of the AFP’s Internal Peace and Security Plan “Bayanihan”.

Initially tagged as “Peace and Development Teams”, the BTs are deployed to immerse in different barangays in order to help in the identification and resolution of primary issues affecting the people, such as but not limited to agrarian reform.

It also aims to bridge the perceived gap between the farmers and the stakeholders and eventually facilitate the implementation of government programs and services especially in far- flung areas.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=537914