With a flurry of initiatives lined up for next year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) shall seek exemptions from the forthcoming election ban on public spending to ensure that projects won't stop nor delay implementation.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. told Manila Bulletin on Monday night, Dec. 16, that the DA is now preparing to apply for "all" of its programs and projects to be exempted from the ban to be imposed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ahead of the May 12, 2025 midterm polls.
In its recently published 2025 Fiscal Risks Statement, the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) grouping the Marcos Jr. administration's economic team flagged that next year's midterm elections could temper expenditures on public goods and services as well as slow down projects' execution.
As for foreign-assisted projects, or those funded by loans and grants from multilateral lenders as well as bilateral development partners, DA Assistant Secretary and spokesperson Arnel V. De Mesa noted that these are "normally" exempted from the election ban, which will start by March of next year.
De Mesa added that new projects must be awarded before this ban.
In particular, Tiu Laurel cited that they want to distribute inputs like seeds and fertilizers before the election-related public expenditures ban takes effect.
The DA chief told reporters that for next year, the agency's top priorities include rolling out more cold-storage and post-harvest facilities, as well as solar-powered irrigation.
He also reiterated their commitment to make available so-called "nutri" and "sulit" rice varieties at P36-37 and P35-36 per kilo, respectively, by the second quarter of 2025.
The DA's plan to change the planting calendar, with the support of government financial institutions (GFIs) Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank), will also push through next year, Tiu Laurel said.
This is despite reports of the DA's proposed 2025 budget to have been cut by at least P9 billion or up to P20 billion.
Tiu-Laurel expressed confidence that the DA is expected to perform better in terms of spending next year's budget as it was crafted under his watch this year.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., who had also served as Agriculture chief when he assumed office in July 2022, appointed Tiu Laurel as the full-time DA Secretary just last November 2023.
Also, Tiu-Laurel pointed out that any DA-related budget item not lodged in the general appropriations act's (GAA) regular items would be eventually disbursed to the agency, citing that up to 75 percent of its unprogrammed appropriations were released to the DA this year.
Since unprogrammed appropriations aren't covered by regular budget financing, these could only be funded by excess or new tax and non-tax revenues, as well as foreign loans for specific projects and programs.
In the proposed record P6.352-trillion 2025 national budget, unprogrammed appropriations are expected to drop to P158.7 billion next year from P731.4 billion this year, documents had shown.