79 ex-rebels in Negros Oriental to get land titles

From the Philippine News Agency (May 22, 2024): 79 ex-rebels in Negros Oriental to get land titles (By Mary Judaline Partlow)

SITE INSPECTION. Members of the Negros Oriental Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict conduct a site inspection in Barangay Bongalonan, Basay town in this undated photo. Manuel Galon (2nd from left), Provincial Agrarian Reform Program officer, said on Wednesday (May 22, 2024) that 79 former rebels will receive individual and collective land titles for this 13-hectare site for housing and communal farms. (PNA file photo by Mary Judaline Flores Partlow)

DUMAGUETE CITY – At least 79 former rebels (FRs) of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) in Negros Oriental will receive individual and collective land titles from the government, a Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) official said Wednesday.

“The distribution of land titles to FRs is in line with efforts of the Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict (TF-ELCAC) to provide them decent housing and a source of income or livelihood through communal farms,” Manuel Galon, Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer (PARPO) II of DAR-Negros Oriental, said.

Some 13 hectares of government land in Barangay Bongalonan in Basay, the southernmost town of Negros Oriental, have been identified for distribution to the FRs.

The area is part of the former CDCP Mining Corporation, now a government-owned and controlled corporation.

The 79 beneficiaries, four of whom are from Basay, have already been profiled and have gone through the process of validation by the Joint Armed Forces of the Philippines-Philippine National Police Intelligence Committee (JAPIC).

Each beneficiary will receive no less than 100 square meters of land for their housing, where individual land titles will be issued, while the remainder of the property will be for communal farms that will be issued a collective title, he added.

DAR Secretary Conrad Estrella will lead the land distribution in August or September.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1225298