The sponsors of the ordinance were Hon. Marc Eric Espinosa, Hon.Jun Mercado, Hon.Arturo Mendoza, with the presence of the SP Secretary Bonifacio Tatad and Mr.Rene Mabao of City Agriculture's Office.
The Toledo Farmers Association,RIC's and agriculturist were called for a public hearing on June 19, at 9:00 am at Barba Sports Complex regarding an Ordinance Amending Section V of "Ordinance No.2002-29 which regulates and provides guidelines for use of the Toledo City Farm Tractor, fixing the minimum charges to private end users for the services rendered per hectare and for other purposes."
The ordinance centered on the increase of rental fee for the usage of tractors knowing the fact that there is an increase of crude oil prices. The previous rate was presented as P1,500.00.But now, it has to increase to meet the fuel price. After reading the ordinance (copies are available at SP office) and discussing points of the amendment, there was an interactive forum. Mr.Gimeno Camangyan of Cabitoonan suggested that P2,000.00 would be just enough, since they would find it hard to meet the tractor operation if the rental price would be far too high. Mr. Lito Trinidad, a farmer further added that the P500.00 increase is just fine knowing the limited resource they have as farmers. Mr.Solly Abellanosa, an agriculturist suggested that the fertilizers for farmers shall be subsidize and that the quantity shall meet with the no.of hectares per num.of fertilizer sack to be distributed because, the usual scenario they met is that 1 hectare would only get 1 sack of rice. "Knowing the fact that there is rice crisis in the country, there is less supply and great demand; In Toledo alone there is 10,000 hectares of land that can be planted with rice ("mais,humay") and that farmer scientist need 100-280 bags of fertilizer/per hectare, thus there is a great need for enough fertilizer/hectare." Hon. Mercado comfort the farmers that Toledo is the only City that subsidize fertilizers and that farming has been given much attention, thus understanding/cooperation is needed among sectors involved. Regarding the rental price, he added that they, as Councilors present will inform the Sangguniang Panlungsod of the comments/suggestions of the farmers. Mr. Felix de Gracia, the tractor driver from the City Agriculture pointed out that, Toledo has one (1) turbo tractor and it consumes 60liters/hectare just for one (1) way,so we must meet the demand of fuel with the rental.; anyway, further discussions will be brought up to the Sanggunian. Mr. Rene Mabao,presented a quantitative data as P3,120.00 ("bungkag") alone, and another P3,120.00 would be spent ("balikon ug karas") so for a fully-tractored hectare you will get to expect an amount of P6,240.00 as expenditure.; but since, the farmers would like to be heard of their plight, they will bring the matter to the Sanggunian for deliberation. There were other suggestions from the women's
group, and the rest of the public. (agenda is taken by the stenographer-SP)
The 2nd proposed ordinance was for the regulation of the transporting of plants/planting materials & Plant products of which the majority confirmed with a positive response.
excerpts taken/rubinmarissa@yahoo.com