PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has bared a plan to distribute 1.5 million hectares of government-owned farm lands all over the country to informal settlers in Metro Manila.

In talks with Palace reporters on the sidelines of the 18th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit, in Jakarta, Indonesia, the President said that  Metro Manila has 560,000 squatter families, meaning  one out of four residents is an informal settler.

Aquino said the plan will allot government land to an initial 560,000 families (a third of the more than 1.4 million informal settlers in the whole country determined to be “squatting” in Metro Manila.

He said a unique “opportunity” had presented itself after an inventory led by the Departments of Agriculture and Environment and Natural Resources had discovered that 1.5 million hectares of government land were readily available.

“We can give each of those 560,000 families two hectares of land provided they cultivate, develop and earn from the land they will live on,” the President said.

“If they fail to stick to these conditions, the land will be taken from them,” he added.