MANILA, Sept 20 (PNA) — Party-list lawmakers have found a practical and reasonable way to unburden the nation’s lowly-farmers from paying irrigation service fees, and help- avert food crisis.
Hon. Anthony M. Bravo and Hon. Cresente C. Paez, both of Party-list Coop-Natcco, are confident that Congress would soon give merit to HB 4983 which proposes to amend Republic Act No. 1169 otherwise known as the Charter of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
The lawmakers seek to amend Section VI A of R.A. 1169 by decreasing at least five (5%) percent from the present fifty (55%) percent Prize Fund and add instead the same to the thirty (30%) percent Charity Fund allocated fund program of the PCSO.
The authors explained that the five percent sourced from the Prize Fund will go to the operating and maintenance fee of the irrigation system being managed by the National Irrigation Administration (NFA).
“The Irrigation Service Fee being collected from our lowly farmers will practically be subsidized by this proposed amendment and result to the abolition of the said fee being shouldered by agricultural workers,” the lawmakers said.
They noted that the current 15% of net PCSO receipts shall be retained as contributions to the operating expenses and capital expenditures of the PCSO, while all balances shall revert to and form part of the charity fund provided for under the PCSO charter.
“The disbursements of the allocations herein authorized shall be subject to the usual auditing rules and regulations,” the author pointed out.
It should be noted that under the said Charter, “any property acquired by an institution or organization with funds given to it under this Act shall not be sold or otherwise disposed of without the approval of the Office of the President, and that in the event of its dissolution all such property shall be transferred to and shall automatically become the property of the Philippine Government.”
What prompted the lawmakers to propose this move? They noted the worsening challenges brought about by the global climate change which majority of researchers have concluded that human activities – in particular, greenhouse gas emissions – are now significant causes of global warming.
“Droughts are already rampant in the African continent. While they are not getting the needed public attention or publicity, NASA predicts that by 2020, between 75 to 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress,” the authors said.
Furthermore, they noted that yields from the rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent in some regions by 2020, agricultural production including access to food, may be severely compromised.
“With these realities, our country, particularly the government should give special attention to this concern,” Bravo and Paez stressed.
They pointed out that vast land areas for rice production are still dependent on monsoon-based periodic rainfall and its dependency is very risky because there are great variations in the average amount of rainfall received by the various regions.
In the wake of recent economic conditions, the agriculture sector is greatly affected by the shortage of the basic needs of the people which is rice. It is just proper to urgently support the programs, projects and activities of the government particularly the operations and management of the National Irrigation Administration which is one of the implementing arms of the Department of Agriculture, they argued.
“There is always a threat to the nation’s food security,” the authors concluded.(PNA)