FIRST SAY:
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
—GEORGE ORWELL, Animal Farm
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President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. chose to spend part of his birthday celebration in meetings with the rice farmers of Nueva Ecija, last Friday the 13th.
The Chief Executive announced the start of the government’s low-interest credit line that rice farmers can use to buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and other farm inputs.
He launched in Nueva Ecija the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) “Agri-Puhunan at Pantawid Program (APP)” and oversaw the distribution of 9,832 certificates of condonation with the release of mortgage (Cocrom) covering P277 million in debts of land reform beneficiaries.
The President led in the distribution of Interventions Monitoring Cards to select rice farmers in Guimba and Palayan City in Nueva Ecija, which can be used to access low interest loans to purchase farm inputs and pay for services from accredited merchants.
Here’s what the APP program has to offer: low-interest loans and a monthly subsistence allowance for rice farmers. For the dry cropping season, the APP will open credit lines to farmers and cooperatives behind 50,000 hectares of rice in Luzon. It targets to reach rice farmers tilling 1.2 million hectares nationwide.
This is only for rice farmers. We hope that the Marcos administration also has a similar financing program for coconut farmers.
The APP credit line has an initial funding of P3 billion from the DA and the Development Bank of the Philippines. The DA also signed deals with Planters Products Inc. and the DBP for the implementation of the APP.
A rice farmer tilling one hectare of farmland will receive P58,000. This includes a P8,000 monthly subsistence allowance to be given for four months, and a P14,500 government subsidy per hectare.
In a statement, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel said the APP program is part of the government’s measures to “make farming more bankable, attract more and bigger investments, nurture a new generation of farmers by uplifting their living conditions and ensure national food security and sustainability in the Philippines.”
After the launch of the APP, Marcos then visited Palayan City where he led the distribution of 9,832 Cocroms to over 6,000 land reform beneficiaries. The certificates covered P277 million in debts of agrarian reform beneficiaries farming 10,450 hectares of land in the province.
The loan condonation is mandated by law under Republic Act No. 11953, or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which the President signed last year.
The distribution of Cocroms aims to “erase all unpaid principal amortizations, interests, and surcharges on agricultural lands awarded under the government’s agrarian reform program,” according to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The DAR also distributed P41 million in agri-credit checks to 480 land reform beneficiaries representing 12 agrarian reform organizations.
“I am aware that despite the government’s programs, many of you are still struggling and are forced to take on loans with high interest rates just to buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides,” the Chief Executive said.
He assured farmers that the government will continue promoting the welfare, rights and improvement of the agriculture sector. He said farmers should be recognized and aided as they carry out their role in ensuring food security for the country.
Indeed, there is no recognition of the collective sacrifice and heroism of our farmers more genuine and productive than opening the financing windows to them. We say Bongbong Marcos truly loves the farmers.
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This week saw the takeover by the New Naia Infrastructure Corp. (NNIC) of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
This means the privatization of the operations and maintenance of the country’s principal gateway has finally started. The NNIC, which is a consortium headed by San Miguel Corp. (SMC), envisioned the scaling up of the yearly terminal capacity from 35 million passengers to 62 million within four to five years of its concession period.
If you scan the list of the short-term changes that the new airport management intends to do, you might get a clear picture of the new NAIA.
The group will install new comfort rooms and refurbish existing ones, place additional seating capacity, install more air-conditioning units and repair those needing repairs, enable reliable high-speed internet, etc.
There are also plans to improve retail and food and beverage services (remember that San Miguel is a food-and-drinks corporation), institute power redundancy, repair walkalators, escalators and elevators, upgrade the X-ray machines, and widen the roads leading to the airport.
The consortium will also upgrade the baggage handling system, update the self check-in and self bag-drop counters and double the capacity of the car parking facility.
In short, the Ninoy Aquino will become a new airport that is indistinguishable from the old one. It took more than two decades and some amount of political will and official honesty on the part of the Bongbong Marcos administration to do so. This will further boost tourism.
RSA, keep on going.
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