Sen. Cynthia Villar (File photo from the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
MANILA, Philippines — More cold storage facilities are being built in various places nationwide as part of government efforts to curb the skyrocketing prices of onions, Sen. Cynthia Villar on Wednesday evening.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) donates these storage facilities to farmer cooperatives, Villar said during the Senate debates on the proposed 2024 DA budget.
In his interpellation, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III asked Villar, the sponsor of the DA budget, how the agency was planning to address the rising onion prices in the country.
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“We are building nine [storage facilities] costing P374 million, but in addition, in the Agriculture Economic Sabotage Law, we are penalizing [smugglers and hoarders],” Villar said.
A single storage facility costs about P40 million.
Data from the DA showed that a total of 16 facilities have so far been built and awarded to farmers since 2018.
According to Villar, the following cold storage facilities were built in 2023:
- two in Occidental Mindoro
- two in Nueva Ecija
- one in Bataan
- one in Nueva Vizcaya
- one in Pangasinan
Meanwhile, storage facilities in 2024 will be built in the following provinces:
- one in Pangasinan
- one in Nueva Vizcaya
- one in Isabela
- two in Nueva Ecija
- one in Pampanga
- one in Tarlac
- one in Oriental Mindoro
- one in Occidental Mindoro
Villar said the DA would now penalize cooperatives who lease their storage facilities to middlemen.