Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Conrado Estrella III has asked the Department of Budget and Management for the creation of 96 Agrarian Reform Program Officer I (ARPO I) posts and the upgrading of 344 Agrarian Reform Program Technologist (ARPT) positions to ARPO I.
According to Estrella, the request was made to strengthen its support to the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and to complete the implementation of the land acquisition and distribution program (LAD).
“The move is intended to beef up the agency’s development facilitators, who are made up of ARPTs, whose upgrading into ARPOs 1 is meant to motivate them to give their all in helping the ARBs attain greater farm productivity,” he said.
He added that it will also help achieve DAR's goal of making the country a "leading agricultural resource hub" in the world.
The official stressed that by pushing for an intensified and vigorous rural development campaign, the rank of its support services staff and development facilitators—who will serve as the agency’s frontliners to cater to the needs of ARBs—will be reinforced.
“So far, 312 vacant co-terminus positions are being finalized before opening them for hiring. Once filled up, the successful applicants will be deployed in the rural areas where they are needed the most to share their expertise in boosting agricultural productivity as envisioned by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr.,” he said.
Marcos, who also serves as the country’s Department of Agriculture chief, has pledged to exhaust all means to help transform the Philippines into the “leading agricultural resource hub” in the world.
The DAR, Estrella maintained, is "slowly but steadily veering towards providing the much-needed support services to farmer-beneficiaries to increase their harvests, augment their income and spur rural development since only about a hundred thousand hectares of 'workable' private agricultural lands are up for distribution in areas under its jurisdiction."
He explained that workable private farmlands refer to those with no legal impediment, with the landowners having already expressed their willingness to work with the DAR for the acquisition and redistribution of their properties to the landless farmers.
As of the latest update, there are still about 500,000 hectares up for distribution nationwide, 300,000 hectares of them are classified as problematic with various court proceedings, and 100,000 hectares being handled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Agrarian Reform, the regional executive department under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.