The proposed budget of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) under the 2025 National Expenditure Program worth PHP11.101 billion is now “deemed submitted” to the Senate plenary.

This, after Senator Cynthia Villar, together with Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino, moved for its approval on Wednesday.

During the budget deliberations, Villar acknowledged the DAR’s mandate of overseeing the implementation of the government’s comprehensive and genuine agrarian reform programs which “actualizes equitable land distribution, ownership, agricultural productivity and tenurial security of the tillers of the land towards the improvement of their quality of life.”

As of Sept. 30, DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said they were able to distribute 146,017 land titles, or a total of 175,105 hectares, to 146,780 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) nationwide.

“Nagawa po namin ito dahil na rin sa suporta rin ng ating mga mambabatas sa Kongreso at dito sa Senado (We were able to do this because of the support from our lawmakers in the House of Representatives and Senate),” Estrella told the panel.

“In fact, kami rin po nung una (at the outset), we were so conservative. Nag-aalangan din po kami kung kakayanin naming mag-distribute ng ganito kadami (We also doubted if we will be able to distribute this much). However, we discovered the bottle necks and dahil po diyan, napabilis namin ang aming pagdi-distribute (and because of that, we were able to speed up our distribution),” he added.

Among the bottlenecks addressed include the shortage of judicial forms; not so well-equipped registry of deeds which was addressed by the Land Registration Authority; and overlapping of forest lands which was also addressed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Estrella said they are still eyeing to distribute more than 800,000 hectares to ARBs before the end of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s term.

He said they are also targeting to distribute 340,000 certificates of condonation by the end of the year.

The agency’s proposed budget for next year is higher by PHP2.522 billion or 29.4 percent than its current year’s approved budget of PHP8.579 billion. (PNA)