Philippines Waivers $1 Billion worth of Debt with Goal of Boosting Food Production

In an effort to increase food production, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos wrote off $1.04 billion in land-related debt owed by more than 500,000 farmers on July 7. The "New Agrarian Emancipation Act" he signed into law forgave all property-related debt owed by farmers who had been given land on 30-year payment terms under a 1988 land reform programme but had been unable to pay.

"We are aware that these farmers lack the resources to pay off this sizable debt. Therefore, charging it to the government is the proper course of action, Marcos said during a signing ceremony at the presidential mansion.

He continued, "We are doing everything to feed our people," referring to the government-issued loans that were written off.

A law was passed about a year after Ferdinand Marcos, the namesake of the current president, was overthrown in a bloodless "People Power" uprising in 1986, and it distributed nearly three million landless farmers with about 4.8 million hectares of plots of land.

The sum represented 16% of the nation's total land area. Congress passed the new legislation because nearly 1.2 million hectares of redistributed farmland had gone unpaid for, with the farm sector's contribution to the country's economic output shrinking.

More than 610,000 beneficiaries of the land reform will gain from the write-off, but it will cost the government 57.65 billion pesos, according to Marcos. According to him, the government will spend an additional 206 million pesos to pay out compensation to landowners whose properties were given to tenants.

The agriculture minister, Marcos, stated that "we need to revitalise the agriculture sector."

Following his election last year, the archipelago nation experienced severe shortages and skyrocketing prices of agricultural products like onions and sugar, and imports of rice, a staple food, also increased.