MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte has issued an executive order directing all government agencies to identify government-owned land suitable for agriculture for distribution to qualified beneficiaries.
Executive Order No. 75, signed by Duterte on Feb. 15, is a step towards the President’s oft-repeated promise to distribute idle government land to farmer-beneficiaries.
Under the EO, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) shall acquire government-owned land devoted to or suitable for agriculture “which are no longer actually, directly, and exclusively used or necessary for the purpose for which they have been reserved or acquired, for the purpose of eventual distribution to qualified beneficiaries.”
All government agencies, within 30 days from the effectivity of the EO, are also ordered to identify their plots of land devoted to or suitable for agriculture and no longer serving the purpose for which they were acquired.
After the identification of the tracts of land, the DAR, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources shall then undertake “validation.”
Meanwhile, within 60 days after the effectivity of the order, the DAR and the Department of Justice shall jointly formulate the implementing rules and regulations for the validation, segregation, transfer and distribution of the identified government-owned land.
“The DAR and the DOJ shall provide for an expeditious procedure for the resolution of protests involving the validation and segregation of government-owned lands,” the EO reads.
Rodrigo Duterte, land distribution, farmers, agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, DAR