PASTRANA, Leyte- About 85 farmers from this town have suffered a massive decline in their income due to insect infestation on their farms.
Records from the Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO) disclosed that the palay infestation was caused by stem borer, an insect larva that bores into plant stems, affecting 102.2 hectares in 12 barangays.
Melanie Marilla who has a three-hectare of palay farm in Barangay Jones, said that the infestation has resulted in the loss of their income.
“We really feel bad on this infestation as this resulted in the decline of our income. Before the infestation, we could harvest 264 sacks of palay but now during our November harvest, our yield only reached to 32 sacks,” the mother of two children said.
A sack of palay could be sold at P600 which this means, Marilla lost close to P140,000, a huge amount for small farmers.
Melinda Barillo, agricultural technologist of Pastrana, said that the infestation which was noted last year, has affected 12 barangays.
These are the villages of Dumarag, Cankaraja, Colawen, Yapad, Aringit, Arabunog, Maricum, Lima, Sapsap, Calsadahay, Jones, and Socsocon which sustained the heaviest damage with 21 farmers covering 22.7 hectares.
Barillo said that they have already reported this infestation at the regional office of the Department of Agriculture for a possible assistance to the affected farmers.
It was learned from her that there were farmers who received financial assistance from the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) as they were able to file their insurance claims with the said office.
(ALMA L. ELASE/JOHN REY N. CABILTE, EVSU Students Intern)

TACLOBAN CITY- The Department of Agriculture in Eastern Visayas will be working on a smaller budget in 2018 primarily due to funding cuts for livestock and high-value crops programs.
From P1.48 billion allotment last year, the department’s outlay slightly dropped to P1.37 billion, said Elvira Torres, DA assistant regional director for research and development.
“There is a 58 percent decrease on livestock program and 24 percent on high-value crops. Overall, our regular budget is 7.57 percent lower than in 2017,” Torres said on Friday.
In 2017, the central government allotted P130.5 million to develop the region’s livestock industry and P156.65 million to hike high-value crops output.
This year, the budget for livestock dropped to P54.43 while the outlay for high-value crops went down to P118.13 million.
Torres, however, said farmers will still enjoy the benefits of these two major programs this year since not all of the budget was spent in 2017.
As of Nov. 30, 2017, only 29 percent of funds for livestock had been used. The high-value crops development program posted a lower utilization rate at 27 percent with just a month left before the end of the year.
Aside from the two major programs, it also reported budget cuts for farm-to-market roads (P377 million to P373.38 million) and locally funded projects (P198.49 million to P126.67 million).
In contrast, the rice program will have a higher budget this year from P373.15 million to P384 million and corn program from P93.61 million to P103.6 million.
The DA has been criticized by private sector representatives in the Regional Development Council for the very low utilization rate of the 2017 budget despite the need to develop the predominantly agricultural region.
Torres said that mechanisms are in place to improve spending this year through planning and intensified monitoring.
“We have complied to the request of the RDC to ensure that spending activities in the future should contribute with the attainment of target 3.6 percent to 3.8 percent growth for the farming sector,” she added.
Eastern Visayas is an agricultural area where 45 percent or 976,415 hectares of total land are devoted to agriculture.
Of its agricultural lands, 70 percent is planted to coconut and 20 percent is planted to rice and corn. The rest is planted to other crops, used to raise livestock and poultry, or produce inland fishery products.
Leyte has the biggest farmlands at 332,018 hectares, followed by Northern Samar (200,563 hectares), Samar (170,995 hectares), Southern Leyte (90,673 hectares), and Biliran (27,230 hectares). (SARWELL Q. MENIANO/PNA)

Incoming Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Eduardo M. Año vows to be the “conductor who will lead towards a clear vision” while relentlessly waging a war against illegal drugs, corruption, communist insurgency, and violent extremism in the turnover ceremony held on Tuesday afternoon.
Facing the officials and employees of DILG, OIC Año laid the blueprint of his leadership focusing on illegal drugs citing that “with the collective efforts of the employees and DILG-attached agencies, greater tasks will be accomplished in the service of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s administration”.
“Under my watch, the DILG will relentlessly and resolutely wage a campaign to rid the country of illegal drugs, criminality, and corruption. The threats of communism and violent extremism will also be met head-on,” says Año.
“I will strongly uphold our primary mandate to ‘promote peace and order, ensure public safety and further strengthen local government capability aimed towards the effective delivery of basic services to the citizenry’” he adds.
To realize the said endeavor, Año says that existing local institutions that deal with peace and order and public safety such as the Peace and Order Councils (POCs), Anti-Drug Abuse Councils (ADAC), and People’s Law Enforcement Board (PLEB) shall be strengthened.
He also says that the engagement of the citizens and other sectors of society in this effort or a whole-of-nation approach is essential to this crusade.
The DILG OIC declares as well that under his leadership, ranks of local and police officials shall be “cleansed” to “separate the bad eggs from within the ranks”.
“As for local and police officials, and all engaged in crime groups, you will be held accountable and will be dealt with uncompromisingly for violating our laws,” says Año. (PR)

TACLOBAN CITY- They will continue their protest actions until the current management of the Leyte Metropolitan Water District (LMWD) will heed on their plea.
Thus said Noel Tabao, president of the Tacloban Union of Barangay Officials (TUBO) which is among the groups that is leading protest rallies against the plan of the current LMWD management to privatize said water company.
“We will not stop our protest rally, rain or shine, until they will listen to us and stop their plan to privatize the LMWD,” Noel said.
Noel was referring to the plan of the LMWD management to have a joint venture agreement with a Manila-based company that will eventually run and operate the LMWD.
According to Tabao, the plan of the current management to enter such agreement is suspicious considering that the member-consumers are not being consulted.
“There should be public consultation on this regards considering its impact to us, member-consumers. Just like any privately-managed corporations, its immediate impact to us is a higher water rate,” the TUBO president said.
Any hike on water rate will be an additional burden to LMWD member-consumers, he said, adding that the current LMWD management should better focus its effort to provide water to the families now living at the northern part of the city, the resettlement sites of families whose houses were totally destroyed when Tacloban City was devastated by supertyphoon ‘Yolanda’ in 2013.
“Until now, there is no water supply in the northern part of the city. They have been crying out loud for LMWD to supply them water,” Tabao said.
There are more than 9,000 families now residing at the different resettlement sites at the northern part of Tacloban City who depend on water ration.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)