The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Wednesday said PHP57.76 billion in farmers’ debts have been condoned under Republic Act (RA) 11953, or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, providing thousands of agrarian reform beneficiaries relief from their obligations and putting more resources into their farms to boost productivity.
During a weekly forum of the Philippine Information Agency, DAR Undersecretary Rowena Taduran said that when Secretary Conrado Estrella III took office, he immediately told President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of the need to totally condone farmers’ debt.
DAR said RA 11953 provides condonation of unpaid principal loans, amortizations, interest, and penalties for over 610,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) nationwide and exempts them from estate taxes.
“Maganda ang batas na yan sapagkat ang principal, interest at penalties sa kanilang obligasyon na bayaran sa Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) ay na-condone na. Ibig sabihin nabura na po yan. Wala na silang obligasyon na bayaran pa (That law is good because the principal, interest, and penalties on their obligation to pay to the Land Bank of the Philippines have been condoned. That means it has been erased. They no longer have any obligation to pay),” DAR Bureau of Agrarian Legal Assistance Chief Eugene Follante said.
“Dahil diyan, lumalabas na 100 percent na yung kanilang pagmamay-ari dun sa ibinigay nating lupa sa mga beneficiaries natin (Because of that, they now have 100 percent ownership of the land we gave to our beneficiaries),” he added.
The debt condonation also protects beneficiaries from losing their awarded land because of willful non-payment of amortization, which is also a ground for disqualification.
Bureau of Land Acquisition and Distribution (BLAD) Assistant Director Manuel Nebreja said ARBs who did not qualify for debt condonation were given a moratorium, allowing them to delay their payments.
“So yung hindi nakasali doon ay nasa moratorium na hindi muna sila mag-a-amortize at ilalagay muna nila sa capital nila sa pagkukultivate at pagpapalago ng kanilang productivity sa lupang naipamahagi ng departamento sa kanila (So those who were not included are covered by a moratorium where they will not amortize yet and will first allocate their money for cultivating and increasing their productivity on the land distributed to them by the department),” he said.
Issuance of e-Titles
Meanwhile, Follante said DAR is also accelerating the issuance of individual electronic titles, or e-Titles, to agrarian reform beneficiaries.
He said under the previous system, some properties were distributed collectively, leaving beneficiaries without individual titles.
“As of January to June, our actual accomplishment consists of 19,967 land titles, e-titles covering 19,006 hectares, benefiting 10,522 agrarian reform beneficiaries,” Follante said.
Chief Agrarian Reform Program Officer Sol Peralta said DAR is also organizing ARBs into registered organizations and cooperatives so they can better access support for production, processing, and marketing.
She said the department also provides training and links farmers with financial institutions for credit and microfinance programs.
Taduran, meanwhile, said DAR completed 537 farm-to-market roads (FMR) nationwide from July 2022 to July 2026, and has 89 FMR projects ongoing.
Partnerships
For 2026, DAR officials said the agency is pursuing new partnerships with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), and the Cooperative Development Authority (CDC).
The DBP partnership will focus on training and credit programs for ARBs, the PCA partnership will align coconut farmers with the agency’s programs, and the CDA will hold caravans to help ARB organizations (ARBOs) complete their registration.
A LandBank credit program for farmers affected by disasters and climate-related events is also expected to be fully implemented within the year.
DAR is also looking to speed up the handling of agrarian cases by adopting more digital processes, including e-filing and electronic delivery of orders, resolutions, and notices.
The department said this could address delays caused by documents not reaching parties in remote areas through regular mail and could also speed up the issuance of Certificates of Finality.
ARBs earnings
Taduran reported that the ARBs across the country have collectively earned PHP10.6 billion as of July this year.
Taduran said over 400 ARBOs are currently covered by the Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty Program (PAHP), which has benefited more than 13,400 ARBs in 79 provinces and 17 regions nationwide.
The PAHP seeks to directly connect ARBOs with institutional buyers such as government agencies, hospitals, schools, and private companies to cut out middlemen and increase farmers’ income, while supporting government food security and nutrition initiatives. (PNA)
