Message of Administrator/CEO Robert Victor G. Seares Jr. during the celebration of the 34th Founding Anniversary of the National Tobacco Administration on July 29.
UNANG-UNA sa lahat ako ay nagpapasalamat sa ating mga unsung heroes, our farmers, our stakeholders, and to all our employees. Sa ating mga Department and Branch Managers and all members of the NTA Governing Board, thank you for giving me the chance to serve the agency even in these very challenging times.
Salamat din kay Pangulong Rodrigo Roa Duterte, Senator Bong Go, at kay Agriculture Secretary William Dar sa tiwala sa ating kakayahan at sa patuloy na pagsuporta sa ating mga programa para sa pagpapaunlad sa kabuhayan ng mga magsasaka ng tabako.
Despite the changing and various challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Tobacco Administration continues to perform its mandate with the same commitment it has shown for the past 34 years, serving the tobacco growers under our leadership.
Allow me to enumerate some of the important accomplishments for the past one year.
We implemented policies and procedures to keep NTA employees safe and healthy, in strict compliance to safety and health measures, as required by the Inter-Agency Task Force.
We facilitated the roll-out of vaccine for the vaccination (1st to 2nd dose) of all Central Office staff, in coordination with the National Government and the city government of Quezon City. The agency has already achieved 100% vaccination of employees in the Central Office. We are confident that with collective efforts from the LGUs and our private partners in the Branch Offices, NTA will be able to achieve all our staff in the Branch Offices to be fully inoculated, safe and healthy before they resume their regular on-site work schedules.
We completed the formulation of the very ambitious program, the Sustainable Tobacco Enhancement Program (STEP), the agency’s five-year industry development program, as the agency aims to undertake changes and improvement in its services, and raise above standards in helping local tobacco growers. This roadmap initiated during the term of my father will utilize the Tobacco Fund to implement various programs and projects.
For the initial implementation of the STEP, our Branch Offices have already established Block Farm models in their respective coverage area, or a total of eight model block farms with an aggregate area of 438.35 hectares and an average of 54.8 hectares per Branch area, involving 636 farmer-cooperators. It is expected that block farming will increase the yield and income of our farmers.
For CY 2020-2021, we released P187 million for the production/financial assistance, with a 40% subsidy on fertilizers/pesticides, to 5,946 tobacco farmers tilling an aggregate area of 4,108 hectares.
We turned over last month the first-ever unit of the solar-aided curing barn (SACB) to a farmer-leader in Ilocos Norte. This demonstrates the latest technology in tobacco production and improve quality and at the same time reduce our fuelwood consumption.
For the livelihood program, we increased beneficiaries and coverage area of the Beef Cattle Production Assistance Project, from 250 last year to 500 beneficiaries with more areas covered in tobacco-growing provinces.
We also increased production assistance of the Rice Production Program from P49 million last year to P69 million this year, to benefit 7,100 rice-corn farmers in major tobacco areas.
To have a more solid basis for policy formulation, especially in designing programs for the tobacco sector and for social amelioration purposes of the government, our personnel at the Farm Technology and Services Department are continuously updating our farmers’ database, with digitized registration of about 40,400 (target) tobacco farmers through the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA).
Also for the initial implementation of the block farming scheme, we distributed farm machineries worth of P53 million to farmers’ cooperatives. Focusing on farm mechanization on the block farm is not just working to the benefit of our tobacco growers, but also propel a paradigm shift in tobacco production.
We also relaunched this tobacco off-season the Gulayan and Manukan sa Barangay and Vegetable Seedlings Projects that were initiated last year as a continuous intervention to enhance food productivity, supply availability, and price stability amid COVID-19.
For the tobacco trading, we gained success in close coordination with the local government units, for the unhampered delivery of tobacco, and movement of NTA staff and trading personnel in their respective areas. We also got the commitment of the buying firms to buy all the tobacco leaves of their contract growers.
We intensified the implementation of the policy on “ease of doing business” in all NTA transactions with the release of our Citizens Charter handbook and our current policy of online transaction in all our regulatory processes; and the integration of these processes into a fully online and interoperable platform with other trade regulatory government agencies (TRGAs) via the TradeNet.
When the lockdowns were at their most restrictive, we saw the need for improving our communication and information dissemination capabilities. We were able to enhance the NTA official website and social media page to give relevant updates and serve as a venue for our stakeholders to air feedbacks, issues and concerns.
I am proud to report to you that we are able to hurdle the ISO 9001:2015 first surveillance audit for its ISO recertification, patunay na napakasipag at napaka-competitive ang ating mga empleyado kapag kapakanan ng ahensia ang pinag-uusapan. We rise to the challenge even in the face of adversity.
With this, I thank the NTA employees for supporting me in our cause and that to improve our office and our services. I am proud to say that we are doing a lot of changes in this agency, and this is not possible without the support and the confidence that you are giving us.
In closing, I remind everyone that we will work collectively and together, we can effectively focus on excellent service and good governance in pursuing major programs and activities for the coming years, and pave the way for sustainable tobacco industry.
Agyamanak unay!