ILOILO City – The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Region 6 eyes to resolve 80 percent of pending agrarian law cases by June this year.
This after DAR secretary John Castriciones challenged DAR offices across the country to achieve a zero backlog of resolutions to cases related to agrarian justice delivery.
The Western Visayas office was the first to accept the challenge, said DAR regional director Stephen Leonidas.
“It is also the compliance of the department with the directive of no other than President Rodrigo Roa Duterte that there must be no pending applications and cases,” Leonidas said on Thursday.
For 2019, DAR Region 6 had a beginning balance of 1,463 cases.
Beginning balance “are all actual cases received and resolved by end of 2018.” It serves as the basis of the department’s target, which is assessed at the beginning of the year.
Leonidas said 496 cases were received by the department in January and 75 cases in February.
Out of this number, Leonidas said 408 cases were decided and signed.
“We have decided and signed 220 cases in January and 188 in February, so that is 408 cases decided in two months (or 28 percent),” he said.
Meanwhile, if the region will base its performance on the national expenditure program (NEP) target of 1,095, Leonidas said DAR Region 6 has already completed 37 percent.
NEP is the budgeted target under the Department of Budget and Management.
“Based on the beginning balance and on the NEP target, either way, if we are to look at it because we still have the month of March, we will be one-fourth of our target – that’s why I’m very optimistic that by first semester we are going to accomplish 80 percent,” the DAR regional chief stressed.
The pending cases oftentimes lack documentary requirements, which involve other agencies like the Department of Agriculture, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, National Irrigation Administration.
“We are the end point and we cannot approve applications unless and until the applicant has already completed beneficiary requirements which can be sourced out from other agencies,” Leonidas said.
To address this, he said the agency will prevent the clogging of cases by dismissing applications that lack documentary requirements.
This will urge the applicants to complete the documents before submitting.
“It will take time to wait for applicants to submit lacking requirements but we if we dismiss applications without prejudice, at least they will be urged to comply with these requirements,” Leonidas said.
Agrarian law cases include application for retention, exemption, conversion, and petition for inclusion/exclusion, among others. Leonidas said these cases are filed by both big and small land owners and farmer-beneficiaries. (With a report from PNA/PN)
