NIA must focus on its mandate

NIA must focus on its mandate | Daily Tribune

Congress has allocated P40 billion more than the National Irrigation Administration initially requested. NIA administrator Eduardo Guillen says he will spend the money on solar pump irrigation projects.

Guillen tried to ego-massage President Bongbong Marcos by saying that number one in the 8-point socio-economic agenda of the President is food security. Then he went on to pat his own shoulder by boasting that the number-one thing needed for food security is irrigation infrastructure.
Enough with the ego tripping ('Tama na ang bolahan').

Among the factors contributing to the plummeting rice production is NIA's total neglect of the present irrigation systems, plus poor management of water allocation.

President Marcos should know that his father had constructed about 90 percent of the irrigation systems for all the arable lands in the country. In Mindanao, for example, only two systems were added after the late Apo Ferdie — the Malmar irrigation system in Carmen, North Cotabato, and the Catiil, Davao Oriental irrigation system.

Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez should know that the irrigation systems had deteriorated due to lack of maintenance. The canals are heavily silted, the embankments that had served as farm-to-market roads had eroded, and wild grass had grown, impeding the flow of irrigation water.

Marcos and Romualdez should, therefore, direct Guillen to rehabilitate all existing irrigation systems before buying solar panels for his cute ideas.

In case he missed the duties and obligations expected of his office, Guillen should be reminded that NIA is tasked with exploring and developing all available water resources primarily for irrigation purposes and constructing dams and irrigation canals to convey water to the rice fields. It is also tasked to operate and MAINTAIN (in capital letters) the irrigation systems and allocate water to farmers during the planting season. These are merely the primary responsibilities of the NIA.

Guillen claimed the President also directed the NIA to deliver the right input to farmers.

"So this will help to lower their input; they won't buy all their inputs anymore," he said.

Then he was quoted by government media as saying, "And of course, I said to the DA, give us your high-yielding varieties first, especially here in the dry season so that we can immediately double your yield or your output of rice production." That's a lot of hot air there.

I do not precisely comprehend what Guillen was referring to when he talked about "right input" to farmers, "to lower their input, they won't buy all their inputs anymore." It's kind of garbled. I think he is going through an information overload.

Guillen proudly claimed that "we have many more projects at NIA that we are doing right now to teach our farmers how to save money and use the right rice variety for El Niño."

Marcos should put a gag on Guillen, as the poor guy merely adds to the confusion. Does he want to be an agriculture secretary? Well, that is a legitimate ambition, but NIA, which he heads, is such a poorly managed agency one wonders why he is still there.

He should advise Guillen to focus on his job first as administrator of NIA before he straddles into rice production. He is facing a gargantuan task to provide and allocate water to farmers through the irrigation systems, which have badly deteriorated through the years.