SEVENTY-EIGHT agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Victorias City have received their certificates of land ownership award (Cloas) from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) earlier this November.

Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officer Ma. Jade Sollesta, who led the activity, urged the farmer-beneficiaries to cultivate the land awarded to them and make it an instrument to improve their lives.

"You must also remember your responsibilities to pay the land tax on time and amortizations," she told the ARBs.

The distribution involved the landholdings formerly owned by Lawrence Emilio Nonata/Jesena and Shantung Commercial totaling to about 107 hectares located in Barangay 10 in the northern Negros Occidental locality.

The agency, meanwhile, reorganized the composition of the Barangay Agrarian Reform Committee (BARC) of Barangay12 in the city.

The newly elected officers included chairperson Rolito Manapo and vice chairperson Rolinda Abolitien.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the community quarantine protocols, DAR-Negros Occidental I said the activities have complied with minimum health protocols set by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) and the Department of Health (DOH).

The DAR is the lead government agency that holds and implements comprehensive and genuine agrarian reform, which actualizes equitable land distribution, ownership, agricultural productivity, and tenurial security for the tillers of the land toward the improvement of their quality of life.