The Commission on Human Rights on Friday batted for the passage of Senate Bill 2100 seeking “to provide direct cash assistance to small-scale farmers and municipal fishermen whose livelihoods have been severely affected by the prolonged lockdowns and economic recession brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“While the crisis is primarily a public health concern, the measures enacted to contain the spread of the virus, especially the restrictions placed on the movement of people and goods, significantly
impacted the agricultural sector and market chain on all levels,” lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement.
“Apart from facing risks every day as they leave their homes either to fish, to farm or to find markets for their products, small-scale food producers such as farmers and fishermen experience the economic burden of the pandemic.”
De Guia said workers in the agricultural sector were suffering from massive losses in sales due to spoilage and reduced sales prices.
“Not only have there been problems plaguing them in the short term but there have also been long-standing structural issues affecting the sector, including land rights, low income of producers, poor infrastructure and high cost of nutritious products among others.”
She said farmers and fishermen were considered to be essential workers who deserved immediate financial and social support.
She said those in the agriculture and fishery sectors were also frontliners.
“Hence, they must also be given equal protection and priority in the COVID-19 vaccination program,” she said.
“While we recognize the Philippine government’s provision of aid to agricultural workers who lost their incomes due to the pandemic, there are still farmer and fishermen groups who were not able to receive assistance as some of them did not qualify as
beneficiaries according to the guidelines set by the implementing agencies. Such administrative hiccups need to be reviewed to ensure that no farmer and fisher folk is being left behind in our COVID-19 response.”
De Guia urged other national government agencies to ensure that our food security front liners are not being driven into deeper poverty, saying with or without the COVID-19 crisis, the government must strive
to uphold standards provided in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.
“As the Philippine national human rights institution, we are all for the genuine agrarian reform and full protection of the constitutionally enshrined rights of the people to economic rights, food security, and quality life,” she said.