How much budget is really allocated for agriculture on a yearly basis?
I was told that there are two schools of thought in the AFMA budget. First is that the AFMA budget is the additional budget of Php20B for the first year of AFMA implementation and Php17 billion every year thereafter for six years and on till 2015 according to AFMA extension law. According to this school of thought, the AFMA budget is being provided in the form of what was called the GATT budget of the pre-AFMA period. Hence now, people refer to the figure which is the DA budget consisting of budgets of the DA bureaus and attached agencies and corporations.
The second school of thought is that all of the DA’s budgets-the budget of the Office of the Secretary, the bureaus, attached agencies and corporations-and what is called Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Program (AFMP) budget-are all AFMA budget. According to this school of thought, the intent of AFMA is to overhaul all agricultural and fisheries programs and so all of the budget going to the DA and the so called AFMP budget are all AFMA budget. Moreover, the budget for AFMA activities of other AFMA-implementing departments and agencies like the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Commission on Higher Education, agricultural and fishery state universities and colleges’ local government units and the National Nutrition Council are likewise AFMA’ budget. Because-of the conflicting interpretations on what should be the AFMA budget, the experts commissioned by COCAFM to assess the implementation of AFMA after five years suggested that rather than harping on the failure of government to provide for the requirements of AFMA, monitoring should focus on how the budget is being used instead.
How do we correct these lapses in the implementation of the law?
The implementation of laws is the job of the executive committee. What we do here is legislation and pointing out the lapses in the budgetary process. But there really is a big gap between government policies. We have good laws on the implementation of the budget. They say here is a budget for water or water impounding dams, farm to market roads but wherever we go, there is a big lack. All senators and congressmen put farm to market roads in their respective districts, but you don’t know where these go. Well a classic example of the misuse of funds is the fertilizer fund scam. That’s Php800M but it goes down the drain because of corruption. How many more fertilizer fund scams are there that we haven’t found out? So it’s really a misallocation of the budget.
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