Dar: Expect comfort in 3rd year of tariffication
DEPARTMENT of Agriculture Secretary William Dar said the Rice Tariffication Law braced up for another “birth pains”, when it entered its first year Thursday.
The Agriculture secretary was in Urdaneta City, along with Senator Cynthia VIllar, the principal author of the said law, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Secretary Isidro Lapena, and other national and local officials, to mark the second year of the RTL
Dar said stakeholders, particularly farmers, have to experience these ‘pains’ in the first two years, but they can expect ease on the third year.
“In spite of the transition and birth pains, maganda ang kinalabasan ng RTL after one year of implementation”, said Dar, proudly claiming that the Philippine government raised P14 billion worth of tariffs in its first year.
Department of Finance Assistant Secretary Renzo Blanco said the government collected P12.31 billion last year. It was P2.31 billion more than their projected P10 billion.
“So far, P 1.71 billion was already collected as of February this year,” he said.
The allocation of P10 billion was for the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), while the surplus was allotted to aid farmers and to ensure crops of farmers who are members of the Farmers’ Cooperatives and Associations.
The tariffication gains is in stark contrast with the statement of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), a farmers’ group that merely claimed the RTL incurred P68 billion in losses for farmers.
Dar said while farmers really experienced difficulties only P 8.2 billion were lost citing the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) data.
“Despite the losses, we were able to save P4.9 billion because of low price in the market so the actual net loss of our farmers was PHP 3.3 billion,” Dar added.
To ease their losses, the farmers were compensated through various financial aid programs launched by the government and the report from the Land Bank of the Philippines showed 163, 527 farmers in the country have benefitted.
Meanwhile, Senator Cynthia Villar, in an ambush interview, said the budget for farm mechanization was already released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Villar said the mechanized equipment will be distributed by the Philippine Center for Postharvest and Mechanization (Philmech) come April this year. (Ahikam Pasion)
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