FOR the first time in 10 years, the en banc assembly of the National Anti-Poverty Commission convened on Monday with President Rodrigo Duterte pledging a P1-billion loanable fund for farmers and fisherfolk affected by natural calamities, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said.
The fund will be part of the Department of Agriculture’s Survival and Recovery Loan Program announced during the NAPC en banc assembly at Malacañang.
The last NAPC en banc assembly was held on July 30, 2007, during the time of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. No en banc assembly was held during the entire six years of President Benigno Aquino.
“During the discussions, [the President] asked me to make an update on the DA’s anti-poverty program along with food production projects,” Piñol said.
“Towards the end of my report, I mentioned the SURE Loan Program which I asked the Agriculture Credit Policy Council to design following a visit I made to the flood stricken provinces in Mindanao,” he added.
The program shall provide two packages: the Survival Package of P15,000 for food and subsistence and the Recovery Package of P20,000 that farmers and fishermen can use “to buy fertilizers and farm inputs to be able to recover.”
“The loan is interest and collateral-free and payable in three years,” he added.
NAPC Undersecretary for Basic Sectors Maria Corazon Tan, who attended the assembly on behalf of NAPC lead convenor Liza Maza who is in Rome for the peace talks with the communist movement, said her agency met with the Department of Agriculture last Jan. 23 about the matter.
She said NAPC technical action officers will serve as the converging point for basic sectors and national agencies in coming up with pro-poor, anti-poverty resolutions but Maza clarified that the NAPC is not the implementing agency.
Maza said NAPC is gratified that Duterte himself has taken the lead in addressing poverty issues and concerns.
“We take steps to ensure that the voices of the poor reach the halls of Malacañang. We, in NAPC, are glad that a sitting President, after 10 years, has once again taken the lead in addressing poverty issues and concerns,” Maza said in a text message from Rome.