MORE than 100 farmers and Typhoon Yolanda survivors from Eastern Visayas are pressing Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel D. Piñol to rehabilitate farms ruined by the howler in 2013, and eventually suffered infestation the following years.
In a picket on Tuesday, staged by the disaster survivors who motored all the way from Samar and Leyte to present their case to Piñol, the farmers insisted that three years after the calamity, the people in the region are still in dire straits, despite claims by officials of the Department of Agriculture (DA) that Eastern Visayas now produces a palay surplus.
The farmers took exception to the claim and stressed that even conservative government estimates place regional hunger incidence at 45 percent, even as the United Nations and the US Agency for International Development (USAid) placed the poverty rate at 55.7 percent two years after one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded hit the region.
“The Duterte administration cannot turn a blind eye on the grim realities in Region 8. Before the calamity, Eastern Visayas was the poorest region with the highest hunger incidence. The situation took a sharp turn from bad to worse,” according to peasant group Sagupa-Sinirangan Bisayas.
The majority of the 4.1 million people in the provinces of Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, Northern Samar and Biliran are poor and hungry, Sagupa-Sinirangan Bisayas said.
Yolanda affected 16 million people all over the country, displaced 4.1 million in Region 8 and destroyed 63,200 hectares of farms, mostly cultivated to palay, with 1.1 million houses completely destroyed or damaged, the USAid reported.
A total of 1,473,251 families were affected in Eastern Visayas, with the Official Gazette placing the death toll at 6,300, higher than the USAid estimate of 6,069.
Two years after the typhoon hit, the previous administration of President Benigno S. Aquino III claimed that only P48.8 million in assistance was available to the typhoon victims.
The Official Gazette reported on November 5, 2015, that the total funding requirement for the Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Recovery Plan (CRRP) was P167,864,788,553, with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) reporting that P52 billion was released immediately.
From all appearances, said the Sagupa-Sinirangan Bisayas, the CRRP was nearly double the total damage wrought by Yolanda, which the government placed at 89,598,068,634.88.
If the Aquino administration was able to release P52 billion immediately, the disaster survivors said it would mean the balance was P112.86 billion, a big chunk of which could have been utilized to rehabilitate farms hit hard by the typhoon.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) urged Piñol to heed the demand of protesting Eastern Visayas farmers and fishermen, whose lives turned miserable after Yolanda hit them in 2013.
KMP Secretary-General Antonio Flores said they need free organic farm inputs, seedlings, technical assistance and equipment to farmers and fisherfolk, a two-year moratorium on payment of irrigation fees, and the genuine rehabilitation and development of the agriculture and fisheries sector in the region.
The DA under Piñol has earmarked billions for increased food production and poverty alleviation in these provinces under the Strategic Areas for Agriculture Development program.
However, claimed Sagupa-Sinirangan Bisayas, the government’s aid and rehabilitation efforts are not reaching the intended beneficiaries.
“We have no lands to till, no government support and services for farmers and fishermen. Coconut farms are infested with coconut scale insect or cocolisap. Abaca is infested with bunchy-top virus. People who are trying to start a new life in the hinterlands cannot live in peace because of intense military operations. It’s like we are stuck between purgatory and hell,” the group said in a statement.