Lawyers of the  Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) have provided 116 farmers from Mamburao, Paluan, and Sablayan in the province of Occidental Mindoro with free legal services that included information sharing, no-cost legal consultation, and counseling to the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

According to DAR Regional Director Marvin Bernal, the DAR offices in the province noticed that it was difficult for farmers to go directly to their offices to seek legal advice on their lands, so they developed the "Lawyers to the Benepisyaryo" program, in which the agency's lawyers will personally go to the farmers to listen to their grievances and problems.

The project was launched in 2021 during the Covid-19 Pandemic. To help prevent the disease from spreading, instead of farmers going to DAR offices for legal assistance, DAR lawyers visited them in their municipalities to provide free legal assistance with agrarian reform-related issues and concerns.

The farmers of Occidental Mindoro were also introduced to the Agrarian Reform Justice on Wheels (ARJOW) program, another DAR initiative.

Bernal said they will also “provide these free-legal services to the rest of the MIMAROPA (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) region throughout the year.”

The DAR reported that during the three-day free consultation, some of the problems raised included issues with the size of the land and the placement of the markers in the area.

Among the topics covered in the consultation were retention, mediation, mandatory arbitration, and farmer-beneficiary rights and obligations, the agrarian reform department added.

The DAR currently uses aggressive alternative dispute resolution techniques in mediation to prevent conflicts from becoming court cases. The main goal is to persuade the disputing parties to settle their differences amicably or out of court before the DAR.

In September last year, Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III said that DAR will hire more lawyers to expedite the resolution of agrarian cases.