THE marching order of President Bongbong Marcos to NIA is: Region 1 must be zero-stress in water delivery, zero stress in irrigation services.

That message was relayed by NIA Senior Deputy Administrator Engr. Robert Suguitan during the leadership turnover on July 19 between Engr. Gaudencio de Vera and Engr. Danilo Gomez as acting regional manager at the NIA office in Urdaneta City.

“Wala dapat ma-stress ni kapirasong taniman lang. Let’s do the best that we can within our means,” Suguitan said.

He added that the centerpiece of most of the President’s messages now is agriculture, that “there’s always food on the table and Filipinos will not go hungry.”

The NIA can help achieve this through proper irrigation, he said.

“The battle cry of the hour is food security. We should be a major part of that assurance,” he stressed.

For his part, Gomez, a Pangasinense, said that the President’s marching order should mean “no plant should go dry” and this required adjusting the planting calendar in April and hopefully finish transplanting by July, and October will be harvest time.

He added that they have achieved 91 percent irrigation in their program area.

By second crop, he said, they will focus their mitigation efforts against El Niño by recommending direct seeding and no more transplanting, and for farmers to shift to high value crops like corn, tobacco, mung beans, peanuts that require less water.

He said they had expected rice supply to be affected with about 50 percent cut during dry season.

But he added that nothing will be sacrificed during wet season. “More water pumps will be distributed,” Gomez said.

Prior to his assignment as NIA acting regional manager for Region 1, Gomez was division manager at the Irrigation Management Office in La Union and was replaced by Cynthia Panit.

De Vera will assume as regional manager of NIA Region 5. (Eva Visperas)

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