Senators seek declaration of state of emergency

THE Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food on Tuesday agreed to recommend to Malacañang the declaration of a national state of emergency because of the spread of the African swine fever (ASF) that has cost the swine industry P50 billion in losses.

The committee, chaired by Sen. Cynthia Villar, conducted hearings to determine the cause of the shortage in pork and pork products that prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to order a price ceiling on pork.

Villar explained that under a state of national emergency, the government can allocate funds for hog raisers who were forced to cull their hogs to stop the spread of the disease.

The motion to ask the government to declare a nationwide emergency was made by Sen. Francis Pangilinan and seconded by Sen. Maria Lourdes Nancy Binay.

The recommendation will be formalized in a senate resolution that will be taken up in plenary.

The proposed resolution will also recommend the creation of an indemnification fund to help the hog raisers who would be forced to cull their pigs.

Pangilinan raised the need to declare a state of national emergency to address the ASF outbreak.

“We should also study how to get additional funding from the tariffs to support this public emergency,” he said.

Pangilinan said that when he was presidential assistant for food security and agricultural modernization in 2014, he recommended the declaration of a public emergency to combat the “cocolisap” outbreak which caused P33 billion worth of damage to the coconut industry.

“We move that the Department of Agriculture recommend to the Office of the President the declaration of a state of emergency in Luzon because of the African swine [fever] so that public funds may be realigned to address the state of emergency,” Pangilinan said during the hearing.

On the suggestion of the National Federation of Hog Farmers’ Chester Warren Tan, the senators also agreed that a state of emergency should be declared not just in Luzon but in the entire Philippines.

Pangilinan said import tariffs should be used to support the funding for the public emergency declaration. He also proposed that the indemnification fund be included in the program, to which Villar agreed.