Agriculture (DA) Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol personally inspected over the weekend farmlands in Agusan del Sur that remained heavily flooded and assured affected farmers and local chief executives, “We will not abandon you.”
Piñol ordered DA Regional Directors Carlene Collado, (Region X) Ricardo Onate, Jr. (XI) and Alberto Ocampo, Jr. (XIII), and the Central Office Operations Director Christopher Morales, to immediately release assistance to the affecfed farmers after he received the initially damage crops and livestock in the from the flooded areas.
Davao region initially reported P57.6 million in crop losses covering the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte and Oriental. Caragra region reported P109.5-M losses in the farming communities of Agusan, Surigao, and Dinagat Islands; and Region 10 estimated agricultural damage at P100.6-M.
During an earlier dialogue with local officials and farmers of Regions XI and XIII at the Provincial Capitol of Compostela Valley Province in Nabunturan, the Agriculture chief made a commitment to pour rehabiliation aid from the national government to LGUs in areas hit by recent typhoon Auring.
“I am not happy to be joining you at this moment because you are in a disaster. This is the saddest scenario that would confront me as I move around the country,” Piñol said.
“I am here to listen to you, and so rest assured that we will not abandon you,” he said after being updated on damage to crops that could run into over P300 million.
Reviving the Davao-Agusan River Basin Development Council
While in ComVal, Piñol urged a revival of the Davao-Agusan River Basin Development Council to enable local chief executives to explore long-term solutions that would address the flooding problems in Davao and Caraga regions.
“We have to take a look at what could be done. Submit a proposal in accessing help from the first world countries’ global climate change fund of $300-billion and I will help you present it to President Duterte during our Cabinet meeting in the next two weeks,” Piñol said.
“We have to address this problem from a deeper perspective,” he said. “Let’s start it now. If not, it [the flooding problem] will just come back again and again and again,” Piñol said.
“We have to do something now to prepare our people from the effects of climate change,” he added.
He said there was always a “window of opportunity in every calamity, as he proposed the planting of rubber trees in the denuded upstream of the River Basin.
Rubber production, he added, would also provide a stable livelihood and income for farmers.
Piñol disclosed that a Finland-based company already expressed interest in putting up a tire manufacturing company in Mindanao.
“Soon, we may be producing the very first Philippine-brand tire,” he said. (Jo Ann Grace B. Pera, DA-AFID)
Reference:
Sec. Emmanuel F. Piñol
