Individual land titles will be awarded to 2,000 beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in Negros Oriental on May 20, an official of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) here said Friday.

Negros Oriental provincial agrarian reform program officer Manuel Galon said in an interview that the beneficiaries are from different parts of the province and are holders of collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs).

“They have been tilling the land awarded to them, but this time, they will be receiving individual instead of collective titles,” Galon said, adding that the beneficiaries are workers of sugarcane plantations.

DAR’s current program is to hand over individual titles to the existing collective CLOA holders, except for about 300 new beneficiaries, he added.

The upcoming distribution forms part of the DAR’s Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling Project, which aims to provide land tenure security to agrarian reform beneficiaries.

Galon said their office’s scope of CARP coverage since 1989 includes 44,000 hectares of land that were distributed or for distribution to beneficiaries.

He said one problem faced by local government units is the reduction in tax collection, as not all those included in the collective CLOA can pay their taxes.

For Negros Oriental, a CARP beneficiary is awarded an average of 9,000 square meters or .9 of a hectare, he added. (PNA)