Instead of scrapping the expanded value-added-tax (EVAT) on oil imports, House Speaker Prospero Nograles has proposed a P15-billion supplemental budget to implement a three-year national food security program.

Nograles said removing the EVAT on oil imports would only push the country into the epicenter of the global economic crisis and “greatly impair” on the government’s capacity to implement projects and programs meant to improve the economy.

“The proceeds from the EVAT is the only thing that keeps us afloat,” he said in a statement on Monday. “Without the EVAT, which is the government's most constant and sure-fire revenue source, the economy will collapse.”

“It is very easy to say we should remove the EVAT, and it is very popular, but I don't think that it is good for the country,” he pointed out.

What should be done instead, the Speaker said, is to use the revenues generated from the EVAT to further re-energize the economy.

Nograles said it would be better to implement the national food security program to would hasten rural infrastructure development and ensure direct farm input subsidies to farmers and fisherfolk.

"We are running against time. Food production is the most practical shield against the global runaway prices," he said.

Nograles said his proposal would answer the sentiments raised by farmers, such as lack of government support, during nationwide consultations conducted by the House committee on agriculture chaired by Palawan Representative Abraham Khalil Mitra.

"The proposed funding is exclusive of all the allocations in the 2008 General Appropriations Act and other programs now being implemented by the President," Nograles said.

The amount could also augment the nationwide rehabilitation of rural infrastructure destroyed by recent natural calamities, especially by typhoon "Frank” (international codename: Fengshen), he said.

The government, Nograles said, must exhaust all means to make seeds and seedlings, fertilizers -- organic if possible -- and other farm inputs accessible and affordable to farmers.

Nograles said the government must likewise study the tax-free importation of farm implements and machinery, fertilizers and other farm inputs within the three-year period to sustain farmers' access to cheaper production inputs.