Camarines Sur-based congressmen are echoing calls for the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to augment the fuel subsidy meant for fisherfolk amid runaway prices for the commodity.

Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. Luigi Villafuerte and 5th district Rep. Migz Villafuerte are also asking authorities to increase the number of target beneficiaries for the subsidy.

“We are hoping that our agriculture and fisheries officials will succeed in scouring for extra fund sources, with an eye to increasing both the number of beneficiary-fisherfolk and the amount of fuel subsidy due them,” Rep. Luigi, a deputy majority leader, said.

The Villafuertes want these officials to make good on their plan to ask for an additional budget from the P10-billion Presidential Assistance to Farmers and Fisherfolk (PAFF) to increase the amount for the fuel subsidy program for qualified farmers and fishermen, or to tap the unused fuel subsidy funds deposited in the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

“A subsidy of P3,000 is rather small for fisherfolk, given the steep increase in petrol prices following the United States (US)-Israel airstrikes on Iran and the fact that fuel account for a huge portion of the operating expenses of fishermen with motorized bancas who need to go out in the open sea to fish,”  said Rep. Migz, chairman of the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology (ICT).  

This week alone, pump prices went up by   P12.90 to P16.60 per liter of gasoline and P20.40 to P23.90 for diesel.  

Under the government’s comprehensive subsidy program, farmers and public transport drivers are to each get P5,000 to help them cope with rocketing crude oil prices, which have lately soared beyond $100 per barrel amid the conflict in the Middle East.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is the only sea exit by Saudi Arabia and the rest of the oil-producing Gulf Arab states for their shipments to the world’s oil markets, is viewed as the main cause of the crisis.

According to the DA, P100 million is available to the agency—plus a stand-by fund of another P50 million—for the distribution of subsidies equivalent to P5,000 for each qualified farmer and P3,000 for every qualified fisherman.   

This amount will enable the government to grant subsidies to almost 15,000 farmers and 23,800 fishermen nationwide.

The Bureaus of Agricultural and Fisheries Engineering (BAFE) and of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will be the agencies distributing the fisherfolk subsidies, he said.

BAFE will also start releasing P5,000 per beneficiary-farmer who is logged in the DA’s Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture and to those who own or are renting machinery, he added.

The Villafuertes noted that in a congressional hearing, BFAR National Director Elizer Salilig reportedly conceded that the P3,000 subsidy for each fisher was small, thus the request for an additional P25 million.

About 2.7 million fishers are registered, but not all of them will be covered by the fuel subsidy program.

Before the latest Mideast conflict broke out, the Villafuertes—along with fellow Camarines Sur 1st district Rep. Tsuyoshi Anthony Horibata and Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon, already urged the Congress to enact a new law providing fuel subsidies to fisherfolk to cushion the impact of the already steep prices of fuel.

They noted that diesel was a major transport expense in the fishing industry.

In House Bill (HB) No. 3388, they proposed legislating a monthly fuel subsidy of P1,000 to municipal fisherfolk plus their automatic enrollment in the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).

Although belonging to a sector that is a major contributor to the domestic economy, the fisherfolk are, paradoxically, among the poorest in the county as they could earn as low as P90 to P130 each at the end of a day’s fishing.

This juatifies the proposal in HB No. 3388 on the establishment of a subsidy program dubbed “Pantawid Pambangka Program,” which would help defray fisherfolk’s fuel expenses, which eat up as much as 60 percent to 80 percent of their daily income.

With the high cost of fuel, small-scale fishers reportedly spend P800 to P1,000 on diesel per fishing trip, thus limiting their earnings to as low as P300 to P500 when their fish catch is low.