on Wednesday, April 19, 2017
BY GILBERT BAYORAN

MANILA- The cut in the P2 billion mandatory annual appropriation for the sugar industry, as stipulated in the Sugar Industry Development Act, which aims to make the industry competitive, was blamed yesterday by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñolon “underspending” by the Sugar Regulatory Administration.

Senator Cynthia Villar, who presided over the joint hearing of the Senate committees on Agriculture and Food and that of the Trade, Commerce and Entreprenuership chaired by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, on the impact of the rising importation of high fructose corn syrup, said the P2B SIDA annual budget for 2017 has been slashed to P1.4 billion.

Piñol said the Department of Budgetand Management usually cuts the budget, if there is underspending.

Since it is a law, you cannot slash it, whether you spend it or not, Villar said.

Sharing the observation of Villar, Piñol said he will call the attention of DBM, being the SRA chairman of the board, to release the differentials next year.

Rep. Alfredo Benitez, author of the SIDA in the House of Representatives, that was approved by then President Benigno Aquino III in 2015, said he and the House Committee on Appropriations have an agreement to include the P600 million differentials in the SIDA budgetnext year.

“Instead of P2 billion budget next year for SIDA, we are looking at P2.6 billion,” Benitez said.

He told SRA chief Anna Rosario Paner that if she proposes a budget, she should increase it, “So that we can have some room to lobby for more funds”.

Paner explained that since SIDA was passedonly in 2015, the release of the first tranche of the budget had only been downloaded to SRA in September last year.

When funds are downloaded, that is the time when things start to roll, Paner said, as she also noted that the procurement process in the government is “very hard”.

Of the mandatory allocation, P1 billion must be allotted for infrastructure, while the other P1 billion should be for grants, scholarships and support services,

Villar told sugar industry stakeholders to utilize the P2 billion fund to be competitive, pointing out that P300 million has been earmarked for agrarian reform beneficiaries.* GPB