Mitigating effects of calamities

Heard about the latest program of the PCIC or the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation?

If you’re a farmer in the Philippines tilling a modest piece of land, say a maximum of three hectares which really isn’t much to go by, this would be interesting news for you. PCIC recently inked an agreement with the Department of Agrarian Reforms (DAR) wherein the agency will cover 230,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries with crop insurance.  DAR will provide the funding (P1 billion) to cover the premiums of these farmer beneficiaries for this year.

The farms to be covered include rice, corn, sugar cane, high-value crops like coconut, livestock and even fisheries. As the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) has already been signed, PCIC is set to start with the program immediately—they are just awaiting the list of farmer beneficiaries from DAR. With such coverage, a farmer can expect to receive indemnity should his crops be destroyed due to natural calamities or pests and diseases or his farming tools/equipment or warehouse be destroyed due to fortuitous events.

With 230,000 farmers hoping to be covered, one can expect that the maximum benefits cannot be all that big. Although the amount of the insurance indemnity depends on the crops involved, average insurance for, say, rice or corn would be P30,000.00. This was relayed to us by lawyer Jovy Bernabe who heads PCIC.

To qualify as a valid beneficiary, the farmer should have no more than three hectares of land that can be covered by crop insurance.

PCIC has been around for several years now, but the idea of having one’s crops insured never really caught on with our local farmers. Not until Typhoon Ondoy came. Since the last three or four years, the number of farmers who availed themselves of crop insurance has quadrupled. In 2012, the number ballooned to 300,000, up from a mere 50,000 farmers and by 2013, they expect this number to reach 600,000 farmers.  Blame it on Ondoy, Pepeng, Pablo – those humongous howlers that claimed thousands of lives and destroyed thousands of hectares of crops. The farmers now appreciate the value of insurance, of money coming in when you need it most because you have just been wiped out. P30,000 may not be much for many of us, but that amount could buy seedlings for some three hectares of land for the next planting season. Or it could pay for their monthly amortizations of their bank loans.

Which brings us to the other strategic partners of PCIC—the local government units and the country’s rural bankers. Hopefully, the local administrators can help PCIC in their relentless campaign to educate the farmers on the benefits of crop insurance. The added costs of the premium are a small dent in their operating costs, really, but there is help coming when the chips are down. And PCIC promises express processing of claims, like what they did after Ondoy struck.

In 2012, PCIC signed a MOA with RBAP (Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines) whose clients are really the small farmers and entrepreneurs in the countryside. Full cooperation has been pledged on both sides to go full throttle on the education campaign via a series of seminars, etc. on the importance of crop insurance for the benefit of our local farmers.

As of this writing, the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. is just awaiting the list of beneficiaries from the DAR, according to Jovy Bernabe, and the program is set to go off immediately.

More power to both agencies.

Business-friendly Tagaytay City

Sunshine Television (STV) is in the midst of preparations for the 1st leg of its much-awaited yearly big auto industry event, the STV Auto Rally Corporate Challenge scheduled in March. Because we have decided to have this   particular leg in the “metro’s summer capital” Georges Ramirez of the famous Ramirez racing clan (who’s been our rally director for our last three successful staging) and myself went the other week to scenic Tagaytay City for an ocular inspection of the route of this “on time, all the time” auto rally.

We paid a courtesy call on the city’s top official, the youthful Mayor Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino, sibling of MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino and we took the opportunity to have an on-cam interview with him for Motoring Today and our other TV show, Business & Leisure.

“Making Tagaytay A City of Character” is now their tagline of choice, and it shows Mayor Tolentino’s  thrust and direction, the quality of his governance. Tagaytay is undoubtedly a boom city, one of the most progressive in the country today, and he says it is probably because they have made the city investor-friendly as well as business-friendly. He makes sure that the investors feel his personal touch, going out of his way to meet them as they come to survey his city. Peace and order as well as environment protection continue to be prioritized in Tagaytay, he says.

At the moment, Tagaytay is host to three golf courses in the city, with three more in adjoining towns, so putting up another golf course here may no longer be feasible. They are, however, open to more restaurants and hotels here.

The young and dynamic Tagaytay City top local government executive shared that according to his friend master architect/planner Jun Palafox, there are only about 20 branded hotels in the country, while our neighbors in the region have more.  The Philippines should be able to afford more of such, he says, and Tagaytay is ideal for this. The Mayor says Tagaytay is definitely open to the idea, and there is still space for branded boutique hotels. The weather is perfect, the crime rate is very low and the cost of doing business is likewise low.  There is no red tape here, according to the Mayor.

Speaking of hotels, they have one boutique hotel here, the Puzzle Mansion Hotel which has made it to the Guinness Book of World Records barely two months ago for having the most number of puzzles, and these are all housed right in the hotel.

The gung ho Mayor is also keenly eyeing the religious houses that have proliferated in Tagaytay City. There are now more than 80 religious houses which include seminaries, retreat houses and convents, and he is eager to test out a new concept of his. Some of these convents and seminaries can be converted into hotels, much like what they have in the Vatican now.  The Mayor has not expounded on his idea just yet but it certainly promises to be more than interesting.

Abangan!

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

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