The Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC) said it will request a P5.5-billion budget for 2026 or P1 billion more, to increase the number of insured farmers in the country.
The PCIC seeks to widen the insurance coverage to 4.8 million farmers from 4.2 million in 2024.
PCIC president Jovy Bernabe told reporters on the sidelines of the Sustainable Agriculture Forum hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines late Wednesday that the agency’s budget has been fixed at P4.5 billion in the last four years.
Bernabe said they would like to request an additional P1 billion in the General Appropriations Act (GAA), although they would have to watch out for the current government fiscal space.
Our yearly GAA allocation is consistently at P4.5 billion — for already four years. We are being supported by the DA (Department of Agriculture) and it really depends on the fiscal space. I understand that it will be dependent on the decision of the Office of the President and the DBM (Department of Budget Management) and Congress and of course, the available fiscal space,” he said.
The PCIC was hopeful the government would increase its budget allocation through GAA as its fund utilization rate has been consistently at 100 percent.
“Well, an additional P1 billion can cover an additional 600,000 farmers or more. So if we are at 4.2 million farmers last year, we may reach almost 4.8 million to 5 million farmers [if we get that additional funding,]” Bernabe explained.
Despite not securing additional funding through GAA in 2025, PCIC said it still saw an increase in the number of farmers that the agency could cover for this year.
Bernabe said such a feat has been made possible by local government units that sometimes have their own extra sources of funds which they can spend for the insurance coverage of local farmers.
“And then, we also have our paying, commercial clients mostly from the sectors of hog, livestock, banana and many other commercial tobacco entities,” he added.
The PCIC also said that it has been covering 47 percent of all farmers in the country with insurance.
The government-owned-and-controlled corporation is the implementing agency of the government’s agricultural insurance program with the principal mandate to provide insurance protection to farmers against losses arising from natural calamities, plant diseases and pest infestations of their palay and corn crops as well as other crops.
The PCIC also provides protection against damage or loss of non-crop agricultural assets including but not limited to machinery, equipment, transport facilities and other related infrastructure.
