Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and his senatorial slate will again push for free irrigation for small farmers nationwide, noting Saturday that the law he authored in the Senate is not being implemented correctly.
In an interview with Radyoman Serge Santillan on RMN’s DYHB 747 in Bacolod City, Lacson said even as he authored Republic Act 10969 or the Free Irrigation Service Act, only two-thirds of the country’s 3.12 million hectares of irrigable land is being watered.
In contrast, Lacson said Vietnam and Thailand, which have over 10 million hectares of farmland, have completely irrigated theirs, “but as for us, we’ve been left behind but we can’t even irrigate our lands completely.”
Senatorial candidate Manuel Monsour Del Rosario, who co-authored RA 10969 as a representative of Makati City when the measure was signed into law in 2017 during the 17th Congress, echoed Lacson and said he will push for its full implementation once elected in the 2022 polls.
“Irrigation is so important, and as Monsour said, we will pursue that,” added Lacson, who is in Bacolod with his Partido Reporma team for the sixth leg of their “Online Kumustahan” talks.
Under the Free Irrigation Service Act, farmers with landholdings of eight hectares and below are exempted from paying irrigation service fees (ISF) for water derived from national irrigation systems (NIS) and communal irrigation systems (CIS) maintained by the National Irrigation Administration and other government agencies.
Del Rosario, the former taekwondo champion and movie star, is a native of Bacolod, having finished his elementary studies at St. John’s Institute (Huaming) Grade School. He joined Lacson and fellow Partido Reporma senatorial bet Dr. Minguita Padilla in the popular local radio program.
The veteran lawmaker noted that irrigation is one of the three pillars of agriculture, along with “binhi” (seeds) and “abono” (fertilizer).
But while Negros Occidental is known as the country’s sugar bowl, the local sugar industry is still threatened by rampant smuggling, which Lacson said can be solved by the full digitalization of Customs processes.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 2018, sugarcane has the largest volume of production and yield in Negros Occidental with 12.85 million metric tons (mt) and 67.63 mt per hectare, respectively.
According to the NIA, the Philippines has about 10.3 million hectares of agricultural lands. A study by the World Bank, however, identified more than 6.1 million ha as irrigable, including areas that are relatively more difficult to irrigate, and up to 8 percent slope.