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Government agencies, particularly those tasked to ensure
the country’s food security, should be given three-year
budgets, if only to ensure the continuity of its
programs, an official of the Department of Agriculture
(DA) said.
Dr.
Frisco Malabanan, director of the DA’s Ginintuang
Masaganang Ani Rice Program, said the measure proposed
by National Academy of Science and Technology president
Emil Javier may be timely in light of the current thrust
of the government for “self-sufficiency,” especially in
rice.
“Giving
us a budget for, say, three years will help us program
some of our activities.
An
example would be in the production of rice seeds. We
will have to wait for the budget before we go ahead with
our plans,” said Malabanan in a phone interview.
The DA
official cited the case of Malaysia, where the
government set aside a five-year budget for the state’s
research and development (R&D) activities.
“This
ensured that their R&D programs and activities will be
continuous,” said Malabanan. Currently, the government
comes up with a yearly budget and proposes it to
Congress. During deliberations, the proposed budget may
be cut or increased, but it is often the case that
programs get budget cuts.
Aside
from setting aside three-year budgets, Malabanan again
emphasized the need to set aside all the amount
stipulated under the Agriculture and Fisheries
Modernization Act (Afma) to the agriculture sector, on
top of the usual allocation given to the DA.
Economists earlier noted that Philippine officials had
been paying lip service to modernizing the country’s
agriculture. Since Afma was enacted in 1997, the
government has yet to give the sector all the P19
billion it was mandated to receive under the law. |
