By Leilanie G. Adriano
Staff reporter
Badoc, Ilocos Norte—Farmers groups in this town Norte are all smiles as they finally received farm machineries and fertilizers on July 5, 2018 courtesy of the municipal government.
Funded under the tobacco excise tax share of Badoc town, the municipal government distributed at least 31 tractors to all the town’s barangays along with 4,307 sacks of fertilizers.
“Agyamankami unay kadagitoy a traktor ken abono. Dakkel a tulong kadakami a mannalon [We are thankful for all these tractors and fertilizers. These are great help for us farmers],” said Luciano Gamayo, of Barangay 13-B, Bato.
During the distribution, municipal agriculturist Leonora Escarda reminded farmers to take good care of the new farm machineries to ensure its long- term use.
As part of the agreement, the farmer organizations and barangay officials shall take charge of maintenance of the tractors while extension workers from the Municipal Agriculture Office will be monitoring them when they go to the barangays.
As stated under Republic Act No. 7171, LGUs producing Virginia tobacco gets a share of 15% of excise tax collection incremental revenue. The law then divides this into 30% among the beneficiary provinces: 40% to the component cities and municipalities of said provinces (provided that all the municipalities and cities of the beneficiary province have equal 50% share and 50% shared according to the volume of tobacco production of tobacco-producing cities and municipalities); and 30% to the component cities and municipalities.
LGUs producing Burley and native tobacco, under RA 8240, also receive a share of 15% of the incremental revenue.
Of this share, 10 percent will go to beneficiary provinces and 90 percent to the component cities and municipalities based on the volume of tobacco production.
Per Department of Budget and Management guidelines, the amounts should be for cooperatives, livelihood, agro-industrial and infrastructure projects aimed at enhancing the productivity and advancing the welfare of tobacco farmers.
The amount shall help improve the capacity of the LGUs to deliver basic services for their constituents.