Angara urges gov’t to provide jobs for drought-stricken farmers
Senator Juan Edgardo Sonny Angara on Wednesday urged the government to provide temporary employment to drought-stricken farmers and farm workers to help them deal with the temporary loss of income or livelihood due to the El Niño phenomenon.
Angara said the government should consider accommodating these farmers and farm workers under the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” program since the El Niño phenomenon is expected to be felt until August this year.
While the government is still coming up with concrete and long-term solutions to address the effects of El Niño, the senator said it is imperative for the state to come up with provisional employment to address the needs of those in the agriculture industry who are severely affected by the drought.
“Many of our farmers and farm workers have already started to look for jobs in construction sites to earn a living after losing their crops to the ongoing dry spell,” Angara said.
Angara said the infrastructure initiative – the centerpiece program of the Duterte administration – aims to generate around one million jobs annually in the medium-term and presents a silver lining for farmers who belong to 60 percent of the poorest of the poor in the country.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) earlier announced that the government would need 800,000 to one million construction workers to fill in the labor gaps of its priority infrastructure program.
A total of 75 flagship projects with a combined total of $36 billion in investments are to be put up in various parts of the country under the program.
Workers are needed for the construction of six airports, nine railways, three bus rapid transits, four seaports, and 32 roads and bridges in Negros Oriental, Leyte, Cebu, Bohol, and Misamis Occidental, among others.
“I hope they (the farmers) can be accommodated in the Build, Build, Build program,” he stressed.
Angara earlier appealed to the government to dispatch immediate help to farmers who are now bearing the brunt of El Niño-induced drought.
He said many farmers, especially those in food-growing areas in the country, are in urgent need of assistance whether in the form of cash, food aid, or alternative livelihoods.
Latest data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) showed that agricultural damage caused by El Niño has already reached R5.05 billion.
The NDRRMC also reported that the dry spell has affected 177,743 hectares of land and 164,672 farmers.
The hardest hit region, based on previous reports, is South CotabatoCotabato-Sultan Kudarat-SaranganiGeneral Santos or SOCCSKSARGEN, followed by Bicol, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan or MIMAROPA, Western Visayas, and Cavite-Laguna-BatangasRizal-Quezon or CALABARZON.