Friday, June 13, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Lito Atienza led the distribution of more than 18,000 land patents and other land tenurial instruments as part of the celebration of the 110th Independence Day yesterday.
Atienza said the mass distribution of land patents is part of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s “Handog Titulo” program and in line with President Arroyo’s order to give the country’s poor easier access to land ownership and security.
“Land is a basic capital upon which all economic goods are produced. It is for this reason that every Filipino dreams of owning a piece of land, a land they can call their own. The government should exert all efforts to make this dream come true for all, especially the poor,” the DENR chief said in his Freedom Day speech in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.
“We will never achieve our democratic ideals if we cannot provide security of land tenure to our own citizens,” he said.
Apart from land patents, the DENR also distributed deeds of sale, certificates of entitlement to lot allocation (CELA) and special patents in various parts of the country.
According to Atienza, Filipinos are not fully enjoying the benefits of freedom as many “are still trapped in the squalor of poverty.”
The other day, Atienza gave out more than 700 tenurial instruments to residents of Metro Manila in a ceremony held at the Ninoy Aquino Parks and Wildlife Center in Quezon City.
These included 381 orders of awards with deeds of sale covering 46,255 square meters, 165 sale patents, 125 CELAs, and 60 deeds of sale covering about 3.5 hectares.
Atienza said a special patent for the Parola Compound in Tondo, Manila will also be distributed soon.
Some of the beneficiaries of the land patents distributed the other day were urban poor families whose home lots were part of Upper, Lower, and Western Bicutan and Signal Village, all in Taguig City, under Proclamation No. 172 issued during the term of former President Corazon Aquino.
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