This was learned from officials of the Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation Systems of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA-UPRIIS) which manages the irrigation water coming from the Pantabangan Dam and other smaller dams in the province.
“As of June 2016, unpaid irrigation service fee in Nueva Ecija had amounted to P2,895,011,228.67,” reported Florentino David, UPRIIS manager.
The fees for irrigation service are 2.5 cavans (50 kg each) per hectare during the wet season and 3.5 cavans during the dry season. At P17 government support price per cavan, they translate to P2,125 and P2,975, respectively.
David said that although collectors have been relentless in knocking on the doors of defaulting farm owners and land reform program beneficiaries, they remained unmindful of settling their obligation.
The Pantabangan Dam, which started operating in the mid-70s, have been providing irrigation to an average of at least 100,000 hectares during the wet season and a little less during the dry season croppings in Nueva Ecija and parts of Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac.
The water at the 8,000-hectare reservoir of the dam since a few years back is augmented by the water flows from two rivers in Nueva Vizcaya. They are conveyed by a 26-kilometer tunnel bored through the mountain ranges in northern Nueva Ecija.
As a result of the increased volume of water in the Pantabangan Dam reservoir, new areas in the towns of Nampicuan, Cuyapo, parts of Guimba and the Science City of Muñoz, and also parts of Anao and Ramos in Tarlac, are provided with irrigation. The farmers are now able to undertake rice cultivation during the dry season in these heretofore rainfed areas.
The waters of the Pantabangan Dam also irrigate farmlands in some parts of Bulacan and Pampanga.
“Kabilang po sa makunat magbayad ay iyong mga may-kaya na may-ari ng lupa at iyong pong mga nagsangla ng kanilang lupang sakahin (Among those who are hard put in paying their obligations are well to-do farm owners and those who pawned-in their lands),” said one of the UPRIIS irrigation service fee collectors. “Ang madalas pong sabihin sa akin ay saka na lang daw po (They always tell me that they will settle their obligation later on),” he added.
Per documentation by the provincial agricultural office in Nueva Ecija, about 376 have landholdings of from five to 11 hectares, 2, 365 have three to less than five hectares, 15, 592 with one hectare to less than three hectares, and 27,011 with less than one hectare. Many of them are no longer actual tillers as they have used their rice lands as collateral for the loans they obtained from moneyed individuals.
Observers said that as the scrapping of the ISF is imminent, as promised by Pres. Duterte and Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, it is now almost certain that the uncollected irrigation fees in the province will not be paid anymore.
All countries in Asia, except in Indonesia and the Philippines, do not charged irrigation service fee. In Indonesia, however, the farmers pay a minimal amount of irrigation service fee which is allotted for the person who opens and closes gate valves of state-owned canals.
In the country, most of the irrigation service fees collected are used to pay for service contractors or casual employees of NIA and for maintenance of existing irrigation facilities.
