LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Bank accounts and farmers’ existing payables with banks for irrigation services are not part of the free irrigation service fees the national government will implement starting next year, the Cordillera office of the National Irrigation Administration clarified over the weekend.
Engineer John Socalo, NIA-CAR regional irrigation manager, said the premature announcement by some government officials of free irrigation service fees for famers next year created more problems on their part because it gave the farmers an excuse not to pay their obligations to the agency this year.
However, NIA will still collect the back accounts due from farmers to increase the available funds for the rehabilitation and upgrading of irrigation systems, leading to more efficient and effective service.
“We will still collect these back accounts because we have to clean our records, thus, we appeal to the farmers to voluntarily settle their back accounts with the nearest provincial irrigation office to clear their names from being indebted with the agency,” Socalo stressed.
While the free irrigation service will continue next year, Socalo said Congress needs to approve the necessary amendments to the law that allows the collection of irrigation service fees.
The NIA’s collection efficiency of 60 to 70 percent annually only indicates there are numerous farmer-beneficiaries who do not promptly pay their irrigation fees with the agency, despite being able to harvest and subsequently market their produce from their farms serviced by NIA, he added.
It is unfortunate, Socalo said, that many farmers “evade paying their obligations to the government after benefitting from the government’s irrigation systems, and the free irrigation service should not be a license for their exemption from the settlement of their obligations.”
NIA-CAR operates the Kalinga-based Upper Chico River Irrigation System, the Ifugaobased Hapid Irrigation System, and the Apayao-based West Abulug Irrigation System, apart from maintaining various communal irrigation systems regionwide.