By Manny Piñol
“Water is a national patrimony. Why ask the farmers to pay for what is theirs?”
With this belief, then Presidential candidate Rody Duterte promised the Filipino farmers that irrigation water for their ricefields will be provided free by government should he win the Presidency.
During the last Cabinet meeting I attended, I asked President Duterte what his instructions are on the issue of “free irrigation.”
“It’s a commitment to the farmers that we have to fulfill,” he told me.
With that clear directive, I immediately started an advocacy to talk to the country’s legislators and seek their support so that the President’s commitment to the Filipino farmers would be realized.
During the “Tapatan: Gobyerno at Mamamayan” in Bicol, key figures in Congress like Edcel Lagman, Joey Salceda, L-Ray Villafuerte and other Bicol congressmen expressed support to the move.
The “free irrigation” advocacy also gained the support of Congressmen from the Leyte and Samar Provinces, including Biliran.
In my home region, SOCSKSARGEN, lawmakers also pledged support for the measure.
Yesterday, I started campaigning for the President’s “free irrigation” commitment in the Senate.
Senate President Franklin Drilon, who is deeply involved in the realization of a 40-year-old irrigation project – the Jalaur River Irrigation Project in Iloilo – expressed support for the measure.
But perhaps the most enthusiastic response came from Senator Loren Legarda who almost went berserk when I told her that rice farmers who could not pay irrigation fees are given the “red flag” by the irrigators’ association and deprived of water during the planting season.
“No, no no! I will not allow that to happen. Please tell President Duterte that I support his commitment of free irrigation water for the Filipino rice farmers,” she told me.
Earlier, I talked to Senator Cynthia Villar, the chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, and she told me that she has already filed a bill proposing free irrigation for the rice farmers.
Senator Villar, who surprised me with her profound understanding of the issues involving agriculture, promised that she would go all out for the realization of the “free irrigation” commitment of President Duterte.
With many other pro-agriculture Senators like Koko Pimentel, Alan Peter Cayetano, Manny Pacquiao and Kiko Pangilinan, I expect the “free irrigation” commitment of the President will sail through both the Lower and Upper Houses of Congress smoothly.
There are actually two ways to immediately realize the free irrigation commitment:
1. By providing for an additional P4-B funding to the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) in the 2017 National Budget so that it will no longer depend on the collections from irrigation fees of farmers for the salaries of its officials and employees and for its operations.
This is the most ridiculous situation in Philippine agriculture where it is the farmers who are being made to pay for the salaries and wages of a government entity which is tasked for provide them with water so that they could produce food for the country.
2. Amend the charter of the NIA so that it will be reverted back to its old status as a line agency under the Dept. of Agriculture instead of being a pseudo government owned corporation that it is today.
I will certainly raise the hackles here of our economic managers and the advocates of the government corporate concept but I believe that making a service agency like NIA a corporation defeats the very purpose of the agency which is to provide water for agriculture.
In a country where poverty incidence is the highest in the farming and fishery sectors, it is like squeezing water out of a rock.
Recommendation No. 1 is the fast way of delivering the “free irrigation” promise by 2017.
But option Number 2 should be pursued so that in the future, providing “free irrigation water” to the Filipino farmers will no longer be just a political decision of a President who cares for the poor but a policy of government which knows how to acknowledge and reward the sacrifices of the sunburned heroes who produce food for this country.
(Photos by Bong Piñol)
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