‘2.4 M hectares of farmland still without irrigation’

MANILA, Philippines -  Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte lamented yesterday that 2.4 million hectares or 43 percent of farmlands remain without irrigation despite the huge sums the government is spending each year to irrigate agricultural areas.

The country would be self-sufficient in rice and other agricultural products if the irrigation program reaches these lands, he said in a statement.

He said the accomplishment rate of the National Irrigation Administration “is far from impressive” and yet NIA has been requesting for higher budgetary allocations and continues to receive large subsidies from the national government to maintain irrigation systems nationwide and to fund its free irrigation program.

“The NIA, despite being a state-owned firm, has been bleeding the government dry,” he added.

Villafuerte, vice chairman of the House committee on appropriations, cited Bureau of Treasury reports showing that the NIA received P11.1 billion in subsidies in the first quarter of this year.

The P11.1 billion is more than five-fold the P2.06 billion acquired by the agency in the same quarter in 2016 and accounts for over half the P19.7 billion subsidies to government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) for the January-March 2017 period.

In February alone, NIA received P8.957 billion or almost 90 percent of the subsidies to GOCCs granted in February.

Villafuerte has proposed the restructuring of NIA and the abolition of irrigation fees in House Bill 2133.

“The bill aims to streamline the government’s irrigation development program and carry out its mandate of irrigating 100 percent of irrigable farmlands in the country within a four-year period. It will provide the impetus for the NIA to overhaul its old system and arrest the sharp drop in farm productivity,” he said.

He said if irrigation reaches all agricultural lands in Camarines Sur, his province could easily jump to the No. 3 rank as rice producer from its current No. 4 ranking.

The NIA is among the four offices President Duterte has transferred to the supervision of Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr.

The three others are the National Food Authority (NFA), Philippine Coconut Authority, and Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority. 

The Villafuerte bill also seeks to return NIA to the Department of Agriculture (DA).  Other congressmen have also proposed the return of all these four agencies to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol.

They said the four offices were taken out of the DA during the Aquino administration so that then presidential assistant for agriculture Francis Pangilinan would have a job of supervising them.

With Pangilinan having reclaimed his Senate seat in last year’s elections, it’s time the four agriculture-related agencies be reverted to the DA, they added.