Bontoc town officials give DAR exec ultimatum on ancestral land controversy

BY ROMMEL LENGWA

BONTOC, Mountain Province – The provincial Agrarian Reform officer here was given a week by local officials to revoke a controversial land title here even as they tried to diffuse the tense and volatile situation among protagonists.

This, following the expose on the issuance of a land title issued by the Dept. of Agrarian Reform to “Erickson Akiate et.al” over a large tract of ancestral land.

Mayor Franklin C. Odsey, Sangguniang Bayan members, “awardees,” land claimants and non-government organizations held a meeting here last week at the town hall to settle the issue but nothing substantial was reached as the DAR representative could not issue definitive answers on the matter.

Barangay Samoki lot owners with DAR officials headed by provincial Agrarian Reform Officer Deogracias Almora met but the conference was cut short before Almora’s presentation.

Lot owners led by former Mayor Alfonso Kiat-ong, Tomasa Sangayab, former town police chief Anacleto Tangilag, Samoki barangay captain Pablo Challoy, and Agnes Panay of the Social Action Center told Almora that they were all in favor of the immediate revocation of the subject “certificate of land ownership award” issued on Aug. 31, 2007.

Sangayab and Panay presented some documents and explained the result of the individual and group consultations they conducted.

“Arising from the continued consultations conducted, the result revealed that all affected lot owners favor the revocation of the anomalous CLOA”, Sangayab said. “This initiative is voluntary and was bankrolled by the individual financial contributions extended by the concerned farmers.”

Almora said he could not personally decide on the matter. “I do not assure that such request be acted upon in one week’s time as demanded because this concern will be elevated and discussed with higher DAR authorities. We have a legal office in the department called the DAR Adjudication Bureau responsible in tackling and deciding on the case.”

He added his staff was working for individual titling of the contested lot. “Our office has a fund obligated for the purpose but we enjoin the barangay officials of Samoki to assist the office in the identification of the real land owners.”

Asked how long individual titling would take, Almora said it would take a long time because consultation, verification and other related technical proceedings were needed.

Unconvinced with the proposal presented, the lot owners insisted that DAR must first work for the immediate revocation of the mother CLOA.

They told the provincial DAR chief to do this in a week.

As provided under terms of the CLOA, the awardee is entitled to “have and to hold in ownership and to use productively said parcel of agricultural land with all the rights and privileges appurtenant thereto, subject to the condition that is shall not be sold, transferred or conveyed except through hereditary succession, or to the Government or to the Land Bank of the Philippines, or to the other qualified beneficiaries for a period of 10 years, provided, however, that the children or the spouse of the transferor shall have a right to repurchase the land from the Government or the Land Bank of the Philippines within a period of two years from the date of transfer.”

By authority of then president Fidel V. Ramos, the document was signed by the DAR secretary that time.