NUEVA ECIJA – It’s harvest time.
Couple’s Arsenio and Betty Obra hurried that early morning to their one-half hectare farm to oversee the harvesting of their rice crop.
About noontime, harvesting was completed and the harvesters started piling the newly cut stalks with the grains. When the work was finished, they went home in Sitio Padilla, Barangay Villa Cuizon, Science City of Munoz happy with the thought they were about to savor the fruit of their toil.
Threshing was done the following day. They grinned as the harvest totaled to 50 cavans. It was the equivalent of 100 cavans harvest in the main cropping (July to October) in which the national average harvest was barely 80 cavans per hectare. (One cavan of palay is equivalent to 50 kilograms. The size of Obra’s riceland is 5,000 square meters as 10,000 meters make one hectare of land.)
Their grin, however, began to fade as they started handing out what were supposed to be taken out from the harvest.
“For the harvesters, a little more than three cavans,” Betty, 50, said as she enumerates where to allocate their harvest. “For the thresher’s fee, about four cavans,” she added.
From the remaining 42 ½ cavans, Betty continued, the repayment of their acquired loans from some moneyed persons in the neighborhood will be taken out.
“To finance our farming activities, we have secured loans from some persons in our community. The repayment scheme for the loan is normally three cavans for every P1,000,” Betty said.
It was a good thing that for the P10,000 loan secured this cropping season from one moneyed person in the community, the repayment for the P5,000 was in terms of the palay harvest and the remaining P5,000 to be paid in cash at the end of the cropping period at 20 percent interest rate, Betty revealed.
After fulfilling their obligations for the P10,000 loan acquired, the Obra couple found themselves bringing home five and a half cavans of palay.
“It’s a good thing my husband was able to enter into a share cropping agreement with a landowner in another place for the cultivation of a hectare riceland. Their harvest was 105 cavans so at 10 percent share, my husband’s share was ten and a half cavans of palay,” Betty said.
She said the P10,000 loan they acquired was for the capital needed for the cultivation of their riceland and for their daily subsistence. She added that she was also able to secure more loans from two persons in another community.
All told, she said, they were left with only ten cavans of palay. She said the remaining palay will be sundried and will be milled into rice for their food supply. Chances are, some cavans may be sold some other day to defray expenses.
Background
Betty, who was then a widow, married Arsenio, who is from Isabela province, in 1994. She was left behind by her late husband with three and a half hectares of land which was covered by a Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Before her marriage to Arsenio, she leased out two hectares for P270,000. From the amount, she gave P220,000 to her eldest who bought an XLT transport jeepney and the rest to another son who bought a rice thresher plus another hectare to till.
She and Arsenio, together with their adopted 10-year daughter who is one of the daughters of Betty’s son, live in a hut in a 30-square meter area.
Arsenio goes out every now and then to catch fish with the use of their battery-operated “panguryente” (stunning fish with electric current) or as hired agricultural worker.
“Nakararaos din po sa pagkain sa araw-araw kahit papaano. Kung minsan po,may karne naman kami na nakukuha sa pautang na babayaran ng isang kabang palay ang dalawa at kalahating kilo (We are managing somehow to get by for our food needs everyday. Once in a while we are partaking of pork which we pay later at the rate of one cavan of palay for two and a half kilos of meat),” Betty said.
Although stuck in a quagmire, she dreams of better life someday thru her adopted daughter.
“Igagapang po namin siya sa pag-aaral hanggang sa makatapos ng kurso (We will try our best to support the education of our daughter until she finishes college),” she said.
Betty, a Catholic, said she never fails in hearing mass once a month when a priest comes to say mass in the community’s chapel. She sometimes manages to go to the city to hear mass when she has the money.
“Talaga pong napakahirap ng buhay ngayon. Ang lagi lang po naming dasal ay bigyan pa kami ng mahabang buhay, huwag magkakasakit, at huwag Niya kaming pababayaan (Life is really very difficult these days. Our only prayer is for the Lord to give us long life, never to get sick, and that He takes care of us always),” Betty said.
