The House Committee on Agriculture and Food created on Thursday a technical working group (TWG) that would study and determine if there is a need to amend the Sugarcane Industry Development Act (SIDA) of 2015, and increase the annual supplemental budget of the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) to further strengthen the country’s sugarcane industry.
During a virtual meeting, the House panel, chaired by Quezon Rep. Wilfrido Mark Enverga, gave in to the motion made by Negros Occidental Rep. Francisco “Kiko” Benitez calling for the creation of the TWG that will be tasked to look into the measures seeking to benefit the sugarcane industry.
Enverga designated Benitez to chair the TWG panel.
“There is much more issues that we have to thresh out with regards to the development of the sugar industry. It is in my opinion that this is best discussed further and more in detail in a technical working group,” Enverga said before his panel adopted Benitez’s motion.
Among the measures that will be tackled by the Benitez panel are House Bill No. 997, which mandates the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to include annually, starting 2019, an initial P5-billion supplemental budget; House Bill No. 2971, which seeks to amend SIDA or Republic Act No. 10659 by proportionately allocating expenditures based on productivity and granting the SRA greater oversight and coordinating powers with pertinent government agencies with regard to importation of sugar; and House Resolution No. 225, which zeroes in on the supposed failure of the SRA in the implementation of RA 10659, that caused adverse effects to the sugar industry in general and to the small farmers and workers.
HB 997 is principally authored by Deputy Speaker and 1-Pacman partylist Rep. Michael Romero. The main proponents of HB 2971 and HR 222 are Negros Oriental Rep. Manuel Sagarbarria and Deputy Speaker and Ilocos Sur Rep. Deogracias Victor Savellano, respectively.
During the hearing, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) vowed to further look into the measures that call for an increased annual supplemental budget for the SRA.
DBM Supervising Budget and Management Specialist John Castillo urged the panel to “consult” with the DoF "on the available funding sources” that will ensure the implementation of the proposed laws.
“We also note that making the sugar cane industry competitive cannot be assured by providing or increasing the appropriation of SRA alone, but rather we should help them strengthen its capacity to use the funds efficiently and effectively,” he told the panel.
“We recommend further study of the said bills and we are getting into the root causes of the problem and if possible we can have impact assessment of what was already done and what are the gaps so that we can pinpoint the correct solution. Bago po sana natin dagdagan ang additional funding sa SRA (Before we provide additional funding to the SRA), we have to identify the correct solution by conducting a root cause analysis,” Castillo said.
NEDA Director Nieva Natural said the NEDA also “shared the same concerns” with that of the DBM when it comes to the absorptive capacity of the agency, which “needs to be addressed.”
“We believe that there is a need to address first the implementation bottlenecks,” she said.