The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Monday distributed 775 electronic titles (e-titles) to 677 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the Ilocos Region, covering more than 717 hectares of land.

The distribution was part of the extended implementation of the World Bank-funded Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT) project, which aims to subdivide around 1.38 million hectares of Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CCLOA) nationwide.

During the ceremonial awarding rites held at the municipal auditorium here, DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella urged ARBs to take proper care of the land awarded to them and make it productive for their future.

Expressing concern on the ageing population of farmers, which has an average age of 60, Estrella encouraged the younger generation, regardless of their profession, to help improve the land they inherited as agriculture remains as the backbone of the Philippine economy.

“Let us focus on food security because it is a national security. Let us teach our children to plant and care for animals,” he said in his speech.

Estrella assured the farmer-beneficiaries that DAR will do its best to uplift the lives of farmers under the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.

He noted that the government has provided various farm machinery and equipment, farm-to-market roads, irrigation projects and other forms of support to farmers in the Ilocos Region to boost their productivity.

“I am so happy and grateful to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. for this program,” Jojie Rumbaoa, a resident of Barangay Namuroc in this town, said in Ilocano after receiving his land title.

“We hope the government will continue to assist us and make our land more productive.”

Rumbaoa said it took him and his nine siblings three years to finally receive their individual land titles. (PNA)