Yes, Sir! You heard it right: This Christmas, a cash gift of P5,000 awaits each PH farmer who is tilling 1 ha of land or below (Lilybeth Ison, 18 October 2019, PNA, pna.gov.ph). Our government knows that farmers are suffering because of declining prices of palay (unmilled rice) brought about by the passage of the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL, earlier this year. This announcement was made by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie at the sidelines of the Philippines-India Trade Consultations held at Shangri-La Makati on Friday, 18 October 2019.
"I'm hoping that this (P5,000 gift) will be given before Christmas," Manong Willie said. It is a one-time cash assistance and will be taken from the tariff being collected from the rice imports via the RTL. There are an estimated 600,000 rice farmers who will benefit from the cash aid of P5,000 each, for a total of P3 billion.
Manong Willie made it clear that the P5,000 cash gift is different and not part of the earlier promised P15,000 to each rice farmer affected by the RTL, under the Expanded Survival and Recovery Assistance Program for Rice Farmers (SURE Aid Program).
From another source (Tina Panganiban-Perez & Ted Cordero, 18 October 2019, "Gov't Shelves Safeguard Duty In Favor Of P5,000 Cash Gift To Rice Farmers – Dar," GMA News Online, gmanetwork.com), Manong Willie said, instead of safeguards duty, "ang dinecide ng Gabinete ay magbigay ng cash assistance" (instead, the Duterte Cabinet decided to give cash assistance).
Nonetheless, he said there will be a meeting of the Economic Development Cluster on October 24, so any proposed safeguard duty on rice imports will be discussed.
Any financial assistance to small farmers will be sourced from the tariff collected from the rice imports. Today, nearly P11 billion has been collected. Manong Willie said:
By the end of the year… bibigay na 'yung cash assistance. We're now drafting the guidelines. (We will be giving the cash assistance surely.)
One time lang ito. Para magaan naman ang Christmas. (This is just once. To lighten the Christmas season.)
No, Manong Willie said, we are not totally scrapping the safeguard duties on rice imports. "Nandiyan palagi. Fallback 'yun." (It's always there. That's our fallback position.)
The cash gift will be extended only to rice farmers who are listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture, RSBSA (Vincent Mariel P Galang, 18 October 2019, "Rice Farmers To Be Granted P5,000 In One-Time Cash Assistance," BusinessWorld, bworldonline.com). Your name will have to be in the RSBSA before you can be given your cash gift.
Months earlier, in August, the DA under Manong Willie and the Department of Finance, DoF, under Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez "agreed… on an assistance program to help rice farmers adjust to low prices of palay" following the passage of the RTL (Louise Maureen Simeon, PhilStar, 12 August 2019, "DA, DOF To Implement Assistance For Farmers," philstar.com).
Mr Dominguez was PH Secretary of Agriculture under President Cory Aquino. These 2 Secretaries know that rice farmers need advocates in high places!@517
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