The Task Force Mapalad claimed yesterday that Negros Occidental is the worst in land reform implementation, based on last year's data, but a local agrarian reform official brushed such claim aside.

Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer I Gideon Yunque said that in terms of the services being delivered by the Department of Agrarian Reform, including land acquisition, training and land survey, they have good accomplishments.

We help them, but they are still negative towards DAR, he said.

Yunque, however, admitted there are weaknesses in the distribution process which already involves other government agencies, namely, Land Bank of the Philippines, Land Registration Authority (Register of Deeds) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. We have no control over that, he said.

TFM Negros president Jose Rodito Angeles said in a statement issued yesterday that overall accomplishment in agrarian reform implementation in Negros Occidental was only 46 percent last year.

Only 5,191 hectares of land was acquired from the revised target of 15,314 hectares, which was finally reduced to 11,310 hectares, he added.

Yunque, however, did not confirm or deny the TFM's figures, as he didn't have available data yesterday.

Angeles said in the same statement that the reason for poor CARP implementation is Secretary Nasser Pangandaman's weak and indecisive leadership.

He said Pangandaman is afraid to confront landowners who resist the CARP implementation even when the law is clearly on the side of DAR.

Angeles said the 122 farmer-beneficiaries in Hacienda Velez-Malaga in Barangay Robles, La Castellana have already lost hope they will ever be installed in their land with Pangandaman at the helm of DAR.*NLG

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