CABANATUAN CITY – At least 200 farming families stand to benefit from the agreement forged by the Social Security System and a local irrigators’ association here on Tuesday.
“It opened the door for a more stable and secured life for our farmers,” said Engr. Josephine Salazar, head of the National Irrigation Administration-Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System (NIA-UPRIIS) of the agreement between the SSS and Deep Well Sumulong Irrigators Association.
The memorandum of agreement which serves as SSS’ pilot project for informal sectors nationwide provides that the irrigators’ association (IA) will subsidize the farmers’ contributions and entitle them to bigger SSS benefits and loanable amounts.
“Under the agreement, the DWSIA will provide a counterpart amount that matches its members’ monthly SSS contribution,” said SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Emilio De Quiros.
“We hope to replicate this innovative arrangement across Central Luzon to boost social protection of some 69,000 farm workers who are members of IAs in the region,” De Quiros added.
DWSIA through its president, Maximo Hernal, signed the MOA with SSS before some 1,000 farmers during a general assembly meeting of the association at the NIA-UPRIIS Gym here.
SSS contributions range from P104 to P1,560 every month depending on the member’s monthly earnings.
If the farmer saves P156 as SSS contribution, the DWSIA will add P156 as counterpart subsidy, for a total of P312 that will be credited to the farmer’s SSS account.
Each IA is comprised of farmers, many of whom serve as both landowners and farm workers.
The funds for the SSS subsidy will be taken from cash incentives granted by the NIA to IAs that have shown efficient collection of farmers’ payments of irrigation service fees and active maintenance of their irrigation system.
The DWSIA, Hernal said, has 185 farmer-members tending a total of 218.55 hectares of farmlands. It is one of 131 IAs under the NIA-UPRIIS Division III.
Hernal serves as DWSIA head and federation president of IAs in the division.
Salazar said IAs have been doing well in financial management thus are able to further the welfare of their members.
Covered under the NIA-UPRIIS are the province of Nueva Ecija and portions of Tarlac, Pampangaq and Bulacan which account for a vast share of rice production in the country. The NIA-UPRIIS has a total of five divisions and covers 391 IAs in Central Luzon that represent over 69,000 farmers.
