Pampanga town dangles total of P1M in reward for dead rats

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The local government of San Luis town, Pampanga province is offering a total of P1 million in rewards for the killing of rats that had been attacking 4,870 hectares of rice and vegetable farms in the town.

The bounty is equivalent to P5 per dead rat.

Mayor Jay Sagum said hunters need only to present the tips of rat tails to claim the cash rewards from the municipal agrarian office, which would set up office at the town hall’s ground floor every 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. from Monday to Friday.

“Rats are a serious problem,” said the mayor in a video post on his social media page on Monday (Oct. 19).

The mayor said San Luis has 5,600 hectares of agricultural land being cultivated by some 2,500 farmers.

Rats threaten to wipe out standing crops, according to Sagum, a medical doctor.

One rat is capable of ravaging 25 kilograms of palay, or unhusked rice, in less than an hour, he said.

Sagum told hunters, however, to go after rats only in San Luis. “We want to annihilate those that are in our town,” he said in Kapampangan.

TSB