House moves to increase DA’s P60-B budget for 2018

Department of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol at a press conference held at Department of Agriculture in Quezon City.EDWIN BACASMAS

The House of Representatives on Thursday deferred its consideration over the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) proposed P60 billion budget for 2018, as lawmakers called for an increase in the agency’s budget.

During the budget deliberations on the DA’s budget, ANAC-IP Rep. Jose Panganiban Jr., chairman of the House committee on agriculture and food, asked the committee to defer consideration on the budget to consider an increase.

The lawmakers agreed to consider increasing the budget for DA, especially with Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol’s initial requested budget of P220.5 billion.

“With the indulgence of the honorable Secretary, I am moving that we defer consideration of the DA budget,” Panganiban said, seconded by Bukidnon Rep. Manuel Zubiri.

In an ambush interview after the hearing, Piñol said he had mixed feelings that the DA was given another chance to push for a bigger budget.

“Malungkot kasi na defer, but at the same time na nakita ko sa Kongreso na concerned sila sa agriculture. While of course di naman ako reklamador, kung ano ibibigay sakin pagkakasyahin ko kung madadagdagan ang budget,” Piñol said.

He expressed hope that the DA would be given a higher budget to fund the Easy Access Financing and the construction of farm-to-market roads.

“We actually proposed P50 billion for easy access financing because we are computing a maximum loan amount of P50,000 for farm and fisher families and we are estimating a million families,” Piñol said.

He said a bigger budget would help the agency plug in the 13,000-kilometer backlog in farm to market roads, noting that a yearly P6 billion allotment for farm to market roads could only fund 3,000 kilometers until 2022.

He said three fourths of the original proposed P220 billion is enough to help the agency improve the agriculture sector.

“Mga three-fourths of that will be very, very good for us because we need to sustain our commitment on the agricultural sector,” Piñol said.

The DA’s proposed budget is P60.6 billion, or an 18.4 percent increase from its approved budget of P51.2 billion this year.

During the budget hearing, Piñol touted a “good year for Philippine agriculture,” citing the 5.28 percent agricultural growth during the first quarter of 2017, up from a negative four percent performance during the same period last year.

Piñol also said that the department’s fund utilization amounted to 95 percent.

He also touted the DA’s first ever national color coded agriculture guide map, which Piñol said can be seen in the website and “will actually guide the farmer on what he could plant on based on the soil profitability and weather condition.”

Piñol said the DA is on track to meet rice self sufficiency by 2020.

“We have found the formula. We are not taking a hunch here, we are taking a tried and tested formula that will increase our production from 3.9 to 4.4 metric tons this year.” Piñol said. With Ma. Teriz Castro, INQUIRER.net trainee/JE