CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Rats have become so serious a problem in the farming town of San Luis, Pampanga that the local government has offered a P1-million bounty for dead rats.
In a video post on his social media page Monday, Mayor Jay Sagum said farmers and all residents are encouraged to kill rats. All they need to present is the tip of rat tails to claim the cash reward of P5 pesos per dead rat.
The municipal agriculture office will set up a desk at the town hall’s ground floor open from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday to Friday to pay out for the dead rats.
Sagum said the municipality has a total land area of 5,600 hectares. Of this, 4,870 hectares of rice and vegetable crops cultivated by some 2,500 farmers have been infested with rats.
Rats threaten to wipe out standing crops, said the mayor, adding that a single rate is capable of ravaging 25 kilograms of palay in less than one hour.
“At P5 per tail, the P1 million bounty is equivalent to 200,000 dead rats. Multiply that to the 25 kilos of palay each rat destroys and then at the usual price of P15 per kilo and you will get P75 million cost of destruction,” Sagum noted.
Rat bounty hunters, however, are reminded by the mayor to go after rats from San Luis only.
“This all a matter of honesty,” he said in Kapampangan. “Do not bring in rats from Candaba or from San Simon,” referencing the two towns adjacent to San Luis.
