DA seeks P53-B additional 2018 budget

Department of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol. EDWIN BACASMAS

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is asking for an extra P53.12 billion in funding on top of its proposed P60.63 billion budget for 2018 to “reformat” the farming and fisheries sector with more farm-to-market roads and irrigation and livestock projects.

But the chair of the House appropriations committee gave a lukewarm response to Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol’s request for additional budget, expressing doubt on the department’s absorptive capacity to use the extra cash.

Piñol laid out his “recast budget” proposal during Thursday’s hearing of the House panel chaired by Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles.

Under the proposal, P20.2 billion of the supplemental funding would go to farm-to-market roads, P9.4 billion to the agricultural credit program, P4.76 billion to small-scale irrigation projects, P7 billion to the fisheries program and P3.75 billion to the livestock program.

No particular item was earmarked for the containment of avian influenza, or bird flu, which recently wreaked havoc on poultry farms in Central Luzon, but some funding was allocated for backyard poultry programs.

Asked by reporters to comment on the proposal, Nograles expressed openness to the idea but was skeptical about how effectively the DA would make use of the money considering its poor absorptive capacity.

“We would certainly study this,” he said.

But DA’s absorptive capacity would be a primary consideration, he said.

“We cannot keep on increasing funds for agencies that do not know how to put their allocation to good use,” Nograles said.

He noted that in 2015, the DA reverted almost P9 billion of unobligated funds to the national treasury because the funds were unused.