Magpet, North Cotabato- IN an effort to settle a nearly 30-year old land dispute in a village in Magpet. North Cotabato, a consultation dialogue between officers of the Dep’t. of Agrarian Reform Provincial Office and some 20 lumad family heads and tribal representatives living in Sitio Tungao, Barangay Temporan was held at the Magpet Municipal Hall last July 1.

Heading the consultation dialogue were Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer II Engr. Marion Abella and Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer I Cenon Original. Mrs. Mildred Dischoso, the municipal agrarian reform officer of Magpet served as the dialogue’s facilitator.

In his opening statement PARO Abella said the dialogue is already the third since 2005 and 2007 when previous consultations were made between Kidapawan town mayor Augusto Gana, the owner of the 185-hectare farmland, and about a hundred lumad families who have been claiming the land as their ancestral domain for the past thirty years.

PARO Abella explained that the 185-hectare Sitio Tungao is included in phase 1 or the distribution of land owned by landowners with big land holdings of the extended Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Under the CARP,  PARO Abella said each resident of Sitio Tungao could be entitled to a total of 3 hectares which would be paid annually for a period of 30 years at the Land Bank of the Philippines with a considerably light amortization.

“After 30 years of continuous payments, the claimants will be given their Certificate of Land Ownership Awards and the land will be fully theirs”, PARO Abella said.

PARO Abella is optimistic that the farmers in Sitio Tungao will consider this offer.

Mayor Efren Piñol meanwhile thanked the DAR for their effort to explain to the claimants the good news from the agency.

He told the residents of Sitio Tungao that the municipal government of Magpet local has no other intention but to help the Lumads acquire a land of their own.    

Mayor Piñol promised to extend more help to the lumads to include medical and health and other forms of basic services. 

Some 104 lumad claimants earlier signed a formal request to the DAR to conduct the consultation- dialogue in order for them to be clarified  on the acquisition of land thru the Voluntary Offer to Sell applied for by Gana.  (JAMES CALMA)