NOTE: THIS PRESS RELEASE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE BOHOL CHRONICLE’S SUNDAY PRINT EDITION.
The more than 200,000 coconut farmers in the province of Bohol has been elated after President Rodrigo Roa Duterte last February 26, 2021 signed into law the Republic Act No. 11524, otherwise known as the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Trust Fund Act.
Provincial Manager Emiliano “Emil” Romero of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) Provincial Field Office and Senior Agriculturist PrimoGalendez said the law prescribes the utilization of the coco levy fund that alleviates poverty and social equality and consequently sustain the development of the coconut industry.
Romero and Galendez explained that only those farmers who are registered at the National Coconut Farmers Registry System (NCFRS) shall be benefited under this law and so with any other programs of the authority.
Along with this, they strongly urged the coconut farmers in Bohol to register themselves at the PCA-Provincial Office, Dampas, TagbilaranCity or at the Municipal Agriculture Office in their respective municipality.
They also said that the DA-PCA has anongoing program aiming at helping the farmers in this time of COVID-19 pandemic.
The Cash and Food Subsidy for Marginalized Farmers and Fisherfolks program has given a great opportunity to the Boholano farmers because of the 346,000 coconut farmers targeted from the 2.5 million registered farmers nationwide about 22,000 slots have been allocated for Bohol.
They said that of the 22,000 names of possible beneficiary, 19,000 of them had already been validated and of these only 9,000 are being qualified because almost half of the farmersvalidated are SAP beneficiaries.
Of the qualified, there were 2,000 of them who already received the P3,000 cash and P2,000 worth of foods (eggs, poultry meat and 25 kilos of rice), while the rest will be receiving momentarily.
They said that the beneficiary of this program must be a registered coconut farmer at the NCFRS, not a beneficiary of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) from the DSWD and has a monthly income not exceeding P21,000 per month.
They confirmed that some of the Boholano farmers who have been working in the coconut industry have continued to be deprived from receiving the benefits from the government just because their names have not registered at the NCFRS. (AtoyCosap)