Gov’t handling dry spell well, insists Palace

DESPITE calls for emergency measures to address the laments of Kidapawan farmers, Malacañang Sunday insisted  the impact of the long dry spell on the country has been well managed and food supplies and prices were stable.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. made the assurance when asked on government radio to comment on Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III’s call for the government to declare a state of calamity in the country due to the widespread impact of El Niño on the agricultural sector.

Coloma said the El Niño Task Force, which faced the Senate inquiry into the violent police dispersal of North Cotabato farmers in Kidapawan City last Friday, had reported that different programs put up by the government to address the El Niño were able to ease the drought by ensuring a sufficient food supply as well as stable food prices in the country.

He said government actions included providing appropriate production support for farmers like irrigation and providing seedlings to non-vulnerable and mildly affected provinces.

The government also increased the buffer stocks of the National Food Authority and imposed a price freeze in areas that declared they were under a state of calamity.

Quoting a report by Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Emmanuel Esguerra, he said inflation data showed that prices of food, particularly rice, “have been low and stable in the past months.”

“In fact for March 2016, despite the El Niño phenomenon, rice prices remained lower than in the previous year (-1.7 percent in March from 2 percent in February) and have been declining consistently since October 2015,” Coloma said, quoting from Esguerra’s report.

Likewise, the report said the price of vegetables was trending downward and declined by 2.9 percent in March 2016 from the previous month or a total decline of 7.8 percent since beginning of the year, according to Coloma.

He said supply and buffer stock management were “being done well with timely purchases.” Christine O. Avendaño