New and improved ACEF to benefit poor farmers and fisherfolk

We, together with Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala are finalizing guidelines that would leave no doubt that the main beneficiaries of the newly restructured Agricultural Competitive Enhancement Fund (ACEF) would be the poor farmers and fisherfolk.

The Department of Agriculture and the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) hope to reopen the ACEF facility in the first quarter of 2012. The new guidelines will allocate only 30 percent for loans, while the rest will be directed toward helping poor farmers and fisherfolk in the form of grants and scholarships.

With the new guidelines in place, 60 percent of the ACEF will be allocated for grants and 10 percent for scholarship programs. The DA must now act aggressively against borrowers who owe the ACEF, on order for us to fulfill our goal of using the facility to help out our targeted beneficiaries.

The old ACEF guidelines were open to interpretation, and that could have been an opening for some unscrupulous individuals to abuse the funds. We are now trying to make it clear that the main beneficiaries should now be those looking to venture into agriculture and fisheries but who lack the competency and resources. Let's face the facts: we need more of our countrymen to go into agriculture and fisheries as our farmers continue to age. In a few years, who will till our lands and provide us food? Agri-enterprises can always go to banking institutions. Our farmers can only go to their government for help, and the new ACEF will do just that.

Quedancor loan from ACEF was diverted to fund retirement benefits of officials

Our sources relayed to us that P300M of the P1B loan was diverted to fund the retirement benefits of QUEDANCOR officials. The rest was used for the swine program where only three feed suppliers with no track record in the industry were accredited.

We earlier filed a resolution calling for an investigation on alleged irregularities in the utilization of ACEF funds that were meant to enhance our farmers and fisherfolk’s competitiveness.

Other questionable transactions were revealed regarding QUEDANCOR’s loan, including zero repayments from beneficiaries. Sources from QUEDANCOR also say that ghost deliveries of feeds were rampant.

We need to get to the bottom of this and send out the message that government will not tolerate these excesses. It is under the Aquino administration that we have this window of opportunity to end pervasive corruption in the bureaucracy. Napapanahon na para magkaron ng pag-asa ang ating mga magsasaka at mangingisda, pag-asa na mula ngayon e yung pondong nararapat mapunta sa kanila ay tunay na mapakinabangan nila. Huhubaran natin ng maskara ang mga walang kaluluwang mga tao na ito at inagaw mula sa ating mga naghihikahos na magsasaka ang pondong iilan lamang ang nakinabang.

Investigate misuse of ACEF

As Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization, I am duty bound to dig deeper into allegations of misuse of the ACEF. Under the law, it is the COCAFM that is tasked to administer the fund. In recognition of this mandate, I as Chair of the COCAFM, during our first en banc session in January this year, immediately recommended the suspension of the program and called on its immediate review. The suspension was approved by the committee.

Since then, the COCAFM has revised the ACEF guidelines in order to prevent the irregularities of the past.

ACEF is meant to help farmers and fisherfolk and agricultural entrepreneurs become competitive. In a report submitted to us in January 2011, ACEF records show that it only has P1.8B fund balance remaining.

This investigation comes at a crucial time in our efforts to uplift the lives of our farmers and fisherfolk. We cannot by inaction allow those who mismanaged the funds to get away with it. To refuse to act and get to the bottom of it would send the signal that we aren’t serious in cleaning up the agriculture and fisheries bureaucracy by going after these scalawags.

Our farmers and fisherfolk belong to the most impoverished sector of society. They are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Powerless and poor, they have been victimized by these abuses. We owe it to them to investigate this and take up the cudgels for them and hold those accountable for their acts.