27/06/2026
The Ati community in Boracay is still awaiting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s response to their appeal to reclaim the land they were granted through certificates of land ownership awards, after being barricaded from the land they have been cultivating for years.
The community initially refused to accept the CLOAs when they were offered in 2018, as they were content with their ancestral domain at a beach front property in Brgy. Manoc-Manoc, Aklan, according to Maria Tamboon, livelihood coordinator of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization.
But it was the Department of Agrarian Reform under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration that insisted that the land would be beneficial to the community’s means of living, as it was good for farming, Tamboon told the Collegian. The community eventually accepted the CLOAs to expand their livelihoods.
It was only in 2023, after they had already settled and grown a dragon fruit farm, that DAR cancelled the CLOAs of the five lots due to the land’s supposed agricultural non-viability. Separate private claimants then barricaded parcels of land distributed under two CLOAs in 2024 and early 2026.
Both the regional and national offices of DAR denied the group’s motion for reconsideration about the cancellation of CLOAs. Now, they are appealing to Marcos, the ex officio chairperson of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, to void the cancellation.
“Kay president, sana ay pansinin din niya yung mga problema namin dito at kahit man lang sana ay makita niya na ito na yung sitwasyon namin dito, na magulo na yung mga buhay namin, na imbes na maganda sana ang ibigay ng gobyerno sa amin ay parang gulo pa rin ang binigay sa amin,” Tamboon told the Collegian.
READ: https://phkule.substack.com/p/boracay-ati-community-awaits-marcos
