{"id":109645,"date":"2017-08-03T04:45:04","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T08:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=109645"},"modified":"2017-08-03T04:45:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T08:45:04","slug":"lawmakers-want-bigger-budget-for-da","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/03\/lawmakers-want-bigger-budget-for-da\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers want bigger budget for DA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"During<\/a>
During the congressional hearing on the DA\u2019s proposed 2018 budget, several lawmakers argued that the PHP60-billion budget was not enough to bankroll the agency\u2019s major programs and it was much lower than the original request of PHP220 billion by DA Secretary Emmanuel Pi\u00f1ol. (PNA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Aug. 3 — The House appropriations committee on Wednesday deferred the consideration of the PHP60-billion budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for 2018 as several lawmakers sought to augment the funding for the agency.<\/p>\n

During the congressional hearing on the DA\u2019s proposed 2018 budget, several lawmakers argued that the PHP60-billion budget was not enough to bankroll the agency\u2019s major programs and it was much lower than the original request of PHP220 billion by DA Secretary Emmanuel Pi\u00f1ol.<\/p>\n

ANAC-IP Partylist Rep. Jose Panganiban Jr., chairman of the House committee on agriculture and food, moved to defer the consideration of the DA\u2019s budget until necessary adjustments have been made.<\/p>\n

“With the indulgence of the honorable Secretary, I am moving that we defer consideration of the DA budget,” Panganiban said.<\/p>\n

Bukidnon Rep. Manuel Zubiri seconded Panganiban\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n

A TEACHER Partylist Rep. Julieta Cortuna cited the need for a proper feasibility study to support the budget request of the Agriculture department and prove that it could deliver improved services and programs to its constituents.<\/p>\n

“It has to be supported with the right feasibility studies that if you provide us with this budget, this is what we can deliver,” Cortuna said.<\/p>\n

Akbayan Partylist Rep. Tom Villarin expressed shock at the budget allocation for the agency next year, noting that Congress should allocate more for the department to boost the agriculture industry.<\/p>\n

North Cotabato Rep. Jesus Sacdalan, for his part, proposed to give a PHP30-billion increase to the agency\u2019s budget for next year.<\/p>\n

In an ambush interview after the hearing, Pi\u00f1ol stressed the need to give the DA a much higher budget for next year to sustain the department\u2019s priority programs such as the Easy Access Financing and the construction of farm-to-market roads (FMR).<\/p>\n

“We actually proposed PHP50 billion for easy access financing because we are computing a maximum loan amount of PHP50,000 for farm and fisher families and we are estimating a million families,” Pi\u00f1ol said.<\/p>\n

Pi\u00f1ol noted that there is a 13,000-kilometer backlog in constructing FMRs, and the proposed PHP6-billion allocation for this endeavor every year will only lead to the completion of around 3,000 kilometers until 2022.<\/p>\n

Pi\u00f1ol said he could settle for three-fourths of the original proposal of PHP220-billion, or around PHP165 billion.<\/p>\n

“Mga three-fourths of that will be very very good for us because we need to sustain our commitment on the agricultural sector. We are growing over 5 percent so kung hindi natin ma-sustain \u2018yan babagsak \u2018yan and alam niyo naman na (ang) agriculture kailangan nito ng financing,\u201d Pi\u00f1ol said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Aug. 3 — The House appropriations committee on Wednesday deferred the consideration of the PHP60-billion budget of the Department …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":109646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[631,1532],"class_list":["post-109645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-budget","tag-da","mauthors-dwight-sunico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}