Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan. Screen grab / Senate PRIB file photo
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Francis Pangilinan on Thursday pushed for a bigger budget for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to ’’ease hunger and save jobs” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This developed after the DA’s proposed P250-billion budget proposal, for the 2022 P5-trillion national budget, was cut to a “meager” P72 billion.
This budget also includes the budget of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), which means only the remainder in the P72 billion will be used for DA’s budget and all other attached agencies.
“Ang ating industriya ng magbababoy, nawalan ng halos 100 bilyong piso noong isang taon dahil sa ASF. Samantala, ang budget para sa agrikultura sa 2022 ay P72 billion lamang. Kulang na kulang,” Pangilinan said.
(Our hog industry lost almost 100 billion pesos last year due to ASF. The 2022 budget for agriculture is only P72 billion. That is really very meager),
“Makakatulong ang mas mataas na budget ng agrikultura upang masiguro na hindi magugutom ang ating mga kababayan at masasalba ang mga trabaho sa sektor ng agrikultura,” he added.
(A bigger agriculture budget would help ensure that our people won’t go hungry and jobs in the sector would be saved.)
During the government economic team’s Senate briefing, Pangilinan asked for a clarification on the DA budget cut. According to Department of Budget Management (DBM) Undersecretary Tina Canda, the DA was unable to comply with the requirements for the evaluation of its requested budget.
The DBM said that justifications for each DA program were not submitted to the DBM.
Meanwhile, Economic Planning Secretary Karl Chua, citing a June-July survey, said the agriculture sector lost over a million jobs or about half of the jobs lost during the period.
Pangilinan, however, asserted that the government should focus on agriculture.
“Kalahati nung nawalan ng trabaho ay galing sa agri sector so dapat naman mabigyan ng kaukulang pansin sa budget yung pagsuporta sa kanila,” he said.
(Half of those who lost their jobs came from the agriculture sector so it should receive a proportional budget attention)
He added that the government must be strategic in securing food for 110 million Filipinos, and increasing the budget of the Department of Agriculture should be one of the basic steps.
“Eventually we should have maybe double, triple, or quadruple the agriculture budget over a period of maybe 5, 6 years kasi talagang napapag-iwanan (because it’s left behind),” Panglininan said.
“I remember I manifested this before. During my first term in the Senate, the budget for infrastructure combined was about P200 billion. Today it’s over a trillion in a span of maybe 10-15 years. This is DOTR and DPWH. Mahalaga ang infrastructure pero mas mahalaga ang pagkain. So sana strategically pagka hinihingi yung P250 billion, eh wag naman sana P72 billion lang ang ibigay,” he added.
(Infrastructure is important but food is more important. So strategically when P250 billion is demanded, don’t just give P72 billion.)
Pangilinan was the former Secretary of Food Security and Agricultural Modernization during the Aquino administration.
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