Erap’s law fails to boost carabao industry

MANILA, Philippines - The 22-year-old so-called Erap law is a failure.

At least, that’s what two congressmen – Batangas Rep. Mark Llandro Mendoza, chairman of the House committee on agriculture, and Rep. Agapito Guanlao of party-list group Butil, who chairs the special committee on food security – think.

The Erap law is Republic Act No. 7303, otherwise known as “Philippine Carabao Act of 1992.”

It is titled, “An Act creating the Philippine Carabao Center to propagate and promote the Philippine carabao and for other purposes.”

Its principal author was then Sen. Joseph Estrada. When he was president, Estrada even visited the center in Nueva Ecija and tried artificial insemination on a hybrid carabao.

He jokingly told reporters that if what he did were successful, the offspring would be a “test tube baby.”

The center, placed under the Department of Agriculture, was to undertake a carabao development program that principally aims to increase the country’s stock of the farm animal.

This did not happen, according to Mendoza and Guanlao, who are launching a joint inquiry on why the program and the Erap law failed.

Guanlao has said the inquiry is timely “in light of a decline in carabao inventory despite a $3-million grant provided by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in 2010 to the program.”

He said the money was to be used for modern equipment for carabao breeding and for research activities.

“Despite the KOICA project, the total carabao inventory in the country declined. As of Jan. 1, 2014, the carabao population was 2.84 million heads, which was 2.36 percent lower than last year’s level,” he said.

He noted that even stocks in commercial farms dropped by 2.35 percent.

There was also a decline in carabeef production as a source of protein, 142.73 thousand metric tons in 2012 to 141.48 thousand metric tons in 2013, Guanlao said.

He said carabaos are also a good source of milk, contributing about 6.6 million liters a year, or 33.6 percent of total milk production.

He suggested that the carabao development program should be given a shot in the arm because of its significant contribution to meat and milk production.

Aside from promoting carabao as a source of meat and milk, the Erap law aims to propagate it as a farm animal.

It calls for the dispersal of good quality stocks to farmers and the conduct of research to increase the population of the previously ubiquitous water buffalo.