Senator Loren Legarda has recently criticized the Department of Agriculture (DA) for its failure to present a clear response to rising oil prices, warning that the crisis has already forced nearly half of Luzon’s small-scale fishers to suspend operations.

During a hearing of the Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform last 8 April, Legarda cited data from the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura showing that fishers in Cavite, Bataan, Zambales, and Pangasinan have stopped going to sea.

She cited that fuel now consumes the bulk of their operating costs, directly threatening the local food supply.

Legarda expressed frustration as DA officials outlined existing programs rather than a new, time-bound strategy to mitigate the six-week-old crisis and noted that farmers in Benguet have been forced to let crops rot in the fields because they cannot afford to transport them to market, and asked if fuel subsidies or crop mapping had been implemented to link producers to buyers.