The Department of Social Welfare and Development is waiting for Bacolod City’s list of small sugarcane farmers and workers affected by the Red-Striped Soft Scale Insect infestation so that they can be covered by Emergency Cash Transfer (ECT) payouts, DSWD Negros Island Region Director Arwin Razo said Thursday, August 6.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod placed Bacolod City under a state of calamity on Wednesday due to the damage caused by the Red-Striped Soft Scale Insect (RSSI) to sugarcane crops.
Bacolod City Mayor Greg Gasataya sent an endorsement letter to the SP requesting the declaration of a state of calamity due to the agricultural and economic crisis caused by the RSSI infestation.
Councilor Jude Thaddeus Sayson, head of the Committee on Agriculture and Agrarian Concerns, said there are 3,056 hectares of sugarcane fields in Bacolod, and 2,000 hectares, or 65.45 percent, have been hit by RSSI.
Losses are estimated at P100 million to ₱200 million, he said.
Razo said that with Bacolod City’s declaration of a state of calamity, its RSSI-affected small farmers and workers can receive ₱10,325 each under the ECT program.
Bacolod’s initial count of small farmers affected is over one hundred, but validation is ongoing, he said.
Razo said the city government has to fast-track the validation so its farmers and workers can be included in the NIR target.
Bacolod is a highly urbanized city so it was not covered by Negros Occidental’s earlier declaration of a state of calamity.*
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