THE dissolution of the Negros Island Region (NIR) will not affect the farmer nor disrupt the support services provided by the government.
Thus said Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael V. Marian as he assured farmers that support services for the area would continue through the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) provincial offices.
President Duterte last week signed Executive Order (EO) 38 abolishing NIR. As provided by the EO, the provinces of Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental shall revert to Region 6 and Region 7, respectively.
The EO stated the establishment of the regional offices of departments and agencies in the NIR requires substantial appropriation to be fully operational, thus, will be competing with government priority programs and projects for funding.
“We will comply with the EO’s directives. However, we will also consult with all the involved stakeholders for us to study what’s best to be done,” Mariano said.
Mariano added the affected DAR employees would either be absorbed or be sent back to their previous units.
“This region has a high land acquisition and distribution [LAD] balance. If we need to reinforce more personnel to work from the region up to barangay level, we will take that into consideration,” Mariano said.
Negros Island has the biggest balance of landholdings nationwide under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), with 89,794 hectares regionwide, comprising of 71,837 beneficiaries. For this year, NIR has a target of 12,392 hectares to distribute.
DAR-NIR has currently 23 permanent and 30 job-order employees.