Senator Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate finance Subcommittee E, presides over a Senate hearing looking into the proposed 2017 P45.3B budget of the Department of Agriculture and its attached agencies. Villar said the proposed budget, mandated to help the 3.5 million coconut farmers, will not be enough to help the country's poorest of the poor. "Farmers earn only on the average P50 a day, or P1,500 a month. We should do programs in order to improve that or else we will not reduce poverty in our country,” Villar said. (PRIB Photo by Cesar Tomambo /04 October 2016)
