Supplementary Guidelines to Expedite Granting Cash Assistance to African Swine Fever (ASF)-Affected Hog Raisers

April 17, 2020

DA MEMORANDUM ORDER NO. 21-20

 

WHEREAS, Section 2 of Article 1 under DA ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER No. 14, Series of 2019 with SUBJECT: GUIDELINES FOR GRANTING CASH ASSISTANCE TO ASP-AFFECTED SWINE FARMS asserts that cash assistance shall be implemented to alleviate production losses and to encourage early reporting by animal farmers of actual or suspected cases of diseases of their animals, thus avoiding further spread;

WHEREAS, the DA MEMORANDUM ORDER No. 31, Series of 2019 with SUBJECT: EMERGENCY GUIDELINES TO MANAGE, CONTAIN AND CONTROL THE INCREASED SWINE MORTALITIES has laid-out the basic requirements and procedures in granting cash assistance, specifically Pre-culling information about Cash Assistance (Section 4), Culling arrangements (Section 5), and Processing and releasing the cash assistance (Section 6);

WHEREAS, the details of the compensation have been provided in DA MEMORANDUM ORDER No. 32, Series of 2019 with SUBJECT: ENHANCING ANIMAL DISEASE REPORTING AND CONTROL THROUGH PROVISION OF COMPENSATION FOR SWINE CULLED DURING GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED DEPOPULATION, specifically Eligibility to compensation (Section 2), Establishment of the Special Account (Section 3), Financing (Section 4), Compensation Procedure Manual (Section 6), Nature and Extent of Compensation (Section 8), Compensation Rates (Section 9) and Payment Procedures (Section 10);

WHEREAS, during the cash assistance implementation there were observed reports on delayed payments and non-uniform format of financial reports;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM D. DAR, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution and existing laws, do hereby order the promulgation of the following guidelines:

SECTION 1. Form of Payment. — Compensation payments from the special account shall be made preferably in cheques, or as recommended by the government finance unit.

SECTION 2. Required Documents and Signatories. — To ensure uniformity in document submission, the list of required reports and documents must be submitted to the Office of the DA Regional Executive Director. The template shown in Annexes 1-3 should be adopted by the concerned regional office.

Each depopulation activity shall be witnessed by Barangay Officials, representatives of the local government unit veterinary/agriculture authorities (Municipal Agriculture Office, Municipal/City Veterinary Office and Provincial Veterinary Office) and the DA Regional Field Office. The DARFO shall be responsible for documenting the activity using a culling form (Annex 2) and shall be filled up in triplicate (Owner's Copy, LGU copy, DARFO Copy) and signed/validated by representatives of the barangay, LGU (Municipality, Province) and the DARFO.

A Consolidated Depopulation Form (Annex 3) for each barangay shall summarize depopulation activities. This form shall as well be signed by the Chairman of the respective barangay, local government unit veterinary/agriculture authority (Municipal Agriculture Office, Municipal/City Veterinary Office and Provincial Veterinary Office) and the Regional Executive Director of the DA Regional Field Office.

SECTION 3. Cash Assistance Process Flow. — The process flow for detection, reporting, diagnostic validation, culling and compensation of affected farmers is summarized through the schematics below, further details are in the following sections of this Order.

 

Steps	Required Document	Responsible office or person
Step 1. Technical validation	1. Disease Investigation Report 2. Laboratory result 3. BAI Confirmation letter addressed to the Regional Director	1. PVO, CVO/MVO, Private veterinarians or DA veterinarians 2. ASP Accredited Lab 3. BAI
Step 2. Culling validation	4. ASP Indemnification Claim Form (Form 1) 5. ASF Consolidated Depopulation Form (with digital copy of photo and video documentation submitted to DARFO)	DARFO Field Representative
Step 3. Document consolidation and initial validation	6. Letter of request for indemnification with the attachments (Documents 1-5 as listed above)	DARFO Regional Executive Director
Step 4. Submission of consolidated documents for technical review	Documents 1-6 (BAI to determine if the listed recipients are from the ASF affected areas and to attach DA OASL Endorsement Letter addressed to OSEC)	BAI Director
Step 5. DA OASL endorsement to OSEC through the DA Finance Group	Documents 1-6 with DA OASL Endorsement Letter (with BAI Director initials under the name of OASL)	DA OASL
Step 6. Financial review and processing	Documents 1-6 with DA OASL Endorsement letter (with DA Secretary approval)	DA Finance Group
Step 7. Allotment of funds		DA Finance Group
Step 8. Release to regional offices and then to farmers		DARFO

 

SECTION 4. Random Validation. — The DA Office of the Assistant Secretary for Livestock (DAOASL) with BAI shall create its own validation team to conduct random validation of documents submitted by the local government units and by the DA Regional Field Offices.

This ORDER shall take effect immediately.

(SGD.) WILLIAM D. DAR, PhDSecretary

ANNEX 1

Sample Disease Investigation Form

ANNEX 2

Form 1 — ASF Indemnification Claim Form

ANNEX 3

ASF Consolidated Depopulation Form 2