The chief of the Department of Agriculture (DA) on Tuesday said he has started lobbying for the scrapping of irrigation fees to increase the production of rice farmers and boost their income.
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said he has gained the support of several members of Congress for the government’s free irrigation bid.
During the series of the “Tapatan: Gobyerno at Mamamayan” in Oriental Mindoro, Bicol, Samar, Leyte and General Santos City, Piñol said local chief executives vowed to extend support toward the accomplishment of the advocacy.
The free irrigation commitment of the Duterte administration also received a nod from the members of the Senate, including Senate Pro-Tempore Franklin M. Drilon, who was involved in the Jalaur River Irrigation Project.
Piñol also said Sen. Loren B. Legarda is “more than willing” to back efforts to provide farmers with free irrigation, after learning that rice farmers who could not pay the irrigation, fees red-flagged and deprived of water during the planting season.
“Sen. Cynthia A. Villar has already proposed, thru Senate Bill 34, a six-year accelerated irrigation program, where areas will be assessed according to priority of need,” Piñol said in a statement.
He said he hopes legislation aimed at providing free irrigation to farmers will sail through smoothly, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Aside from Drilon and Legarda, Piñol said the free irrigation advocacy is being supported by other proagriculture legislators, such as Sens. Aquilino L. Pimentel III, Alan Peter S. Cayetano, Emmanuel D. Pacquiao and Francis N. Pangilinan.
Earlier, Piñol said he has proposed to increase the funding of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) by P4 billion in its 2017 budget to wean away the agency from its reliance on irrigation fees from farmers to pay the salaries of its employees and maintain irrigation facilities.
“This is the most ridiculous situation in Philippine agriculture where it is the farmers who are being made to pay for the salaries and wages of a government entity mandated to provide them with water so that they could produce food for the country,” he said.
Piñol has also recommended the amendment of the charter of the NIA for it to be reverted back to its old status as a line agency under the DA, instead of “being a pseudo government-owned corporation.”
“In a country where poverty incidence is the highest in the farming and fishery sectors, it is like squeezing water out of a rock. Recommendation No. 1 is the fast way of delivering the ‘free irrigation’ promise by 2017,” he said.
“But option No. 2 should be pursued so that in the future, providing ‘free irrigation water’ to the Filipino farmers will no longer be just a political decision of a President who cares for the poor, but a policy of the government that knows how to acknowledge and reward the sacrifices of the sunburned heroes who produce food for this country,” he added.