Professional Gov't Crop Insurance Agency Underway

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has underscored the need for the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC) to be run by industry professionals to stanch its financial hemorrhage and let it provide Filipino farmers with better protection against economic losses.

Photo Insert: PCIC Chairman and Vice Chairman Carlos Dominguez III and Agriculture Secretary William Dar, respectively

During the first organizational meeting of the reconstituted PCIC Board over the weekend, the members formalized the election of Dominguez as its chairman, and of Agriculture Secretary William Dar as its vice chairman.

The Board also appointed lawyer Joyce Briones of the DOF Legal Affairs Office as the new Corporate Secretary of the PCIC.

PCIC president Jovy Bernabe; Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) president-CEO Cecilia Borromeo; and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Rolando Macasaet were named members of the new Board.

The Board has yet to appoint one representative each from the private insurance industry, and the subsistence farmers’ sector (preferably representing agrarian reform beneficiaries/cooperatives/associations) as Board members.

“This Board’s most immediate tasks are to reorganize the PCIC, stop its financial bleeding, and deliver better insurance coverage to Filipino farmers. It needs to expand the assets and crops that the PCIC covers, and to transform this agency into a viable instrument reinforcing our risk mitigation and resilience efforts,” Dominguez said during the virtual meeting.

Dominguez said the PCIC should study the possibility of engaging in reinsurance and encouraging more private companies to offer agricultural insurance products so that farmers can benefit from the efficiency in services that these firms offer.

The PCIC should likewise consider other types of insurance programs implemented in other countries, such as the index-based or parametric insurance to substantially mitigate the economic losses of farmers from calamities intensified by climate change, said Dominguez who is also chairman-designate of the Climate Change Commission (CCC).

Dominguez, who was agriculture secretary during the administration of the late President Corazon Aquino, said the PCIC likewise needs to expand its insurance coverage to include more crops to protect more farmers from financial losses resulting from bad weather, droughts, floods, or other calamities.

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