The House of Representatives has adopted a resolution to affirm its commitment to pass a P66-billion supplemental budget for the Department of Agriculture to enable the agriculture and fishery sector recover from the devastation caused by the coronavirus disease 2019.
House Resolution 925 was passed by the chamber two days after President Rodrigo Duterte, in his 5th State of the Nation Address, endorsed the DA’s “Plant, Plant, Plant” program and asked for congressional approval of “this P66-billion agricultural stimulus package that will help the agriculture and fisheries sector recover” from the COVID-19 outbreak.
The resolution was authored by Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, Majority Leader Martin Ferdinand Romualdez, Deputy Speaker Luis Raymond Villafuerte Jr., Rep. Lucy Torres-Gomez of Leyte, and Rep. Florida Robes of San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan.
HR 925 expressed “the commitment of the House of Representatives to enact the proposed P66-billion supplemental budget of the DA to support its programs in addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the areas of food and nutrition, security and price stability.”
The Defeat COVID-19 Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by Cayetano and co-chaired by Romualdez, sponsored the measure on the floor as a substitute for House Bill 821 introduced by Robes.
Almost three months ago, Villafuerte pushed for a “re-prioritization” of the proposed 2021 General Appropriations Act, with a big part of the annual budget going not only to infrastructure and social services but also to agricultural development—“with the long-term goal of attaining sufficiency in rice and other basic foodstuff in the post-pandemic scenario.”
“Alongside ‘Build, Build, Build,’ the Duterte administration needs to likewise put ‘Plant, Plant, Plant’ on the front burner to best prepare the country for the ‘new normal’ once the pandemic spawned by the lethal COVID-19 has been contained,” Villafuerte said earlier.
“While rebooting the President’s centerpiece infrastructure modernization program would enable the economy to stage a quick recovery as soon as the pandemic is over, giving top priority as well to agriculture development would boost farm output that would, hopefully, make the Philippines self-sufficient in rice and other basic foodstuff in the long run.”
According to HR 925, the COVID-19 pandemic has “wreaked havoc to the already volatile and challenging area of food security globally, including the Philippines, and with it the urgent need to act with haste to avoid reduced food security, decreased nutrition and higher food prices.”
HR 925 stresses the need for a stimulus program for the farm sector as “the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to worsen the hunger and malnutrition situation with the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and variants thereof, and the concomitant economic fallout.”
It noted that the DA has proposed the allocation of a supplemental outlay of P66 billion as a stimulus package “to ensure food security, food supply availability, and price stability” through three key initiatives, namely:
• P31 billion for its ALPAS (Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat) Kontra sa COVID-19 Program to raise agricultural productivity while ensuring food sufficiency through rice buffer stocking, steady food supply at stable prices through the upscaling of the "Kadiwani Ani at Kita" or the rolling food stores all over Metro Manila, in partnership with the local chief executives, and the promotion of urban agriculture in Metro Manila and in major cities;
• P20 billion for its Food Logistics Plan to make sure that agricultural commodities are accessible and affordable by strengthening the food logistics projects, price monitoring and enforcement system, extension support to provincial local government units (LGUs); and
• P15 billion for the Cash-for-Work Program (C4W) to assist landless farmers and displaced workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.