The Department of Agriculture (DA) is eyeing to regain authority over the management of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC).
The agency said the DA as overseer will make crop insurance more beneficial to agricultural stakeholders. PCIC’s operation will also be harmonized with that of the DA.
“It is hard when you are talking of calamities, indemnification and you do not have control over the insurance, it is hard to harmonize with the operations. Maybe what we need is to identify… the pitfalls before and strengthen them,” Rex Estoperez, DA spokesperson told reporters in an interview last Friday.
PCIC is the implementing agency of the government’s agricultural insurance program and currently operates as an attached agency to the Department of Finance after former President Rodrigo Duterte issued Executive Order 148 in September 2021.
Estoperez said they are hopeful the PCIC will be returned to the DA’s supervision this year especially that the sector is still experiencing issues including the African swine fever, avian influenza and calamities, among others.
However, Estoperez said they have yet to consult the matter with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who is concurrent DA secretary but that DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban will raise it to the Cabinet.
Based on data extracted from a Freedom of Information request, PCIC last year covered a total of 3.84 million farmers, fisherfolk and cooperatives for P128.73 billion and a premium of P6.06 billion.
For the same year, total number of claimants reached 702,673 for a total indemnity of P4.49 billion.
