FROM BUSINESS MIRROR: DA circular spells out guidelines on cash assistance for farmers

Filipino rice farmers who have not received any financial assistance from the government will be prioritized in the next tranches of the cash aid, the Department of Agriculture (DA) assured on Monday.

The DA issued Memorandum Circular (MC) 30 that outlined the guidelines for the distribution of the rice farmers' financial assistance (RFFA) for fiscal years 2022 until 2024.

In particular, the MC specified the rules for the prioritization of farmer-beneficiaries for cash assistance under the RFFA in accordance with Republic Act 11598 or the Cash Assistance For Filipino Farmers Act.

"The criteria in the prioritization of farmer beneficiaries are presented by tier taking into consideration the following: receipt of cash assistance from DA, registration in RSBSA [Registry System for the Basic Sectors in Agriculture], and rice area cultivated," the document read.

Rice farmers categorized under Tier 1 or those who have not yet received any cash assistance from the DA's programs such as the RFFA 2019, Financial Subsidy for Rice Farmers 2020 and Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund-RFFA shall be prioritized.

This shall be followed by rice farmers under Tier 2 or those who received cash assistance once with rice farmers who have received cash assistance twice already being categorized in Tier 3, according to the document.

Regardless of tier, rice farmer-beneficiaries must be registered in the government's RSBSA and must be farming rice areas of 2 hectares and below, the DA said.

The government, through the DA, has been providing financial cash assistance to rice farmers using the tariffs in excess of P10 billion collected from rice imports since 2019.

Under Republic Act 11203 or the rice trade liberalization law, rice tariffs collected in excess of P10 billion could be used for financial assistance, among other possible options.

But last year, Duterte signed RA 11598 that mandated that all rice tariffs in excess of P10 billion must be used solely for financial assistance to farmers tilling 2 hectares and below until 2024.

"The government recognizes the urgency to assist the farmers in view of the declining palay prices and the crippling effect of Covid-19 pandemic," MC 30 read.

"As such, it shall provide monetary assistance to the hardest hit segments of the country's small farmers in the form of giving cash to farmers," MC 30 added.

Since the enactment of RA 11203, the government's rice tariff collections have been steadily increasing.

In 2019, the Bureau of Customs (BOC), has certified an excess rice tariff collection of about P2.135 billion which grew to P5.5 billion in 2020. Last year, the BOC collected a total of P18.9 billion rice tariffs, which meant that P8.9 billion tariff collections would go to the financial assistance program for rice farmers.

The RA 11598 has streamlined the fund transfer of the RFFA as the BOC shall automatically transfer the excess rice tariff collections to the DA, doing away of the usual budgetary procedures such as the legislation of the General Appropriations Act.

Earlier this year, the DA vowed to complete the distribution of the 2019-2020 financial assistance program for rice farmers before the end of January.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel V. de Mesa said nearly half of the 1.497 million target rice farmers have already received their P5,000 cash assistance from the RFFA program.

De Mesa explained that out of the 1.497 million target beneficiaries, some 867,063 rice farmers already have an e-wallet, of which 745,946 rice farmers already received their P5,000 cash assistance. He added that 188,956 rice farmers have been given their intervention monitoring card (IMC).

"Before the end of January 31, we will be able to distribute the whole [P7.6 billion RFFA]," he said in a virtual news briefing in mid-January. ### (Jasper Y. Arcalas)

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