MANILA, Philippines — Cartels and corruption have been rendering laws to boost agricultural production and improve the lives of farmers useless, presidential aspirant Sen. Panfilo Lacson lamented yesterday.
Lacson cited the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) and the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act or Republic Act 10845 as among the statutes that are not meeting their objectives due to poor implementation by officials allegedly in the pockets of smugglers and cartels, who make money out of importation of agricultural products.
“The penalties against them (cartels) must be stiff as that is economic sabotage and impacts on food security. Smuggling happens when there is corruption,” he told Bombo Radyo in Filipino.
He said the Senate committee of the whole, chaired by his running mate Senate President Vicente Sotto III, spearheaded an inquiry earlier this year on the alarming tendency of the Department of Agriculture to resort to importation of food staples instead of boosting productivity.
Sotto lamented that since the enactment of the RA 10845 in 2016, not one smuggler has been convicted despite billions of pesos worth of agricultural products seized by the Bureau of Customs.
At a press conference after meeting with farmer groups in Nueva Ecija on Sunday, Lacson said the 2022 budget proposed by Malacañang for agriculture was at P11 billion but Congress increased it to P13 billion to include machinery and equipment for farmers under the RTL.
He said just a year after the RTL was enacted in 2019, farmers already reported that the equipment they received were defective or quickly broke down.
Lacson and Sotto also proposed a “paluwagan” or a rotating savings and credit system for micro, small and medium enterprises, farmers and fisherfolk.
Sotto called for the creation of a database of farmers and other members of cottage industries in the country for proper identification in the distribution of government assistance.