A PHILIPPINE senator on Tuesday called for the passage of a bill that would mandate a one-time condonation of farmers’ unpaid interests, penalties, and other agricultural loans to ease debt payment burden and boost local production.
“We will form a technical working group, which should have stakeholders present because we need to clarify what we will condone,” Senator Cynthia A. Villar, who heads the agriculture, food and agrarian reform committee, told a hearing on Senate Bill No. 2744 which seeks this one-time condonation of loans and debts.
“This is for the farmers and fisherfolk wherein if they will have their debts condoned, it will help them and at the same time clean up the records of the government’s credit organizations.”
The House of Representatives in 2023 approved on final reading a similar bill seeking to restructure and allow condonation of unpaid interests, penalties, and surcharges on loans of farmers, fisherfolk, and agrarian reform beneficiaries.
The condonation program will cover agricultural and agrarian reform loans secured through the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR) existing and terminated credit programs.
Under Senate bill, the condonation program will cover unpaid interests, penalties, and surcharges of agrarian loans from the departments of Agrarian Reform and Agriculture, People’s Credit and Finance Corp., Cooperative Development Authority, National Food Authority and the Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp.
The measure requires the loan principal to have paid at least 2% of the amount to qualify for the condonation. — John Victor D. Ordoñez