The Department of Agrarian Reform is eyeing more rebel-returnees to become beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
DAR Secretary John Castriciones said efforts to win back rebels is gaining more ground while the government intensifies its distribution of agricultural lands.
He said the inclusion of rebel-returnees as farmer-beneficiaries could help resolve their grievances and put an end to the five-decade-old insurgency problem.
Over 500,000 hectares of agricultural lands under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law would be distributed, while 230,000 hectares of government-owned lands would be devoted for agriculture under President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 75.
On March 19, DAR distributed to 1,573 agrarian reform beneficiaries a total of 2,335.31 hectares of agricultural lands that were spread across the five provinces in Eastern Visayas.
Come April, another group of rebel-returnees in Nueva Vizcaya shall receive their shares of farm lots “to indicate that the government is serious in winning the sympathy of landless farmers and bringing back the rebels to the fold of law.”