The President of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, Atty. Jovy Bernabe, together with newly appointed PCIC Board of Director Mr. Nestor Custodio (representing the Luzon Farmers Group), recently visited the provinces of Nueva Ecija and Pampanga to personally hand over indemnity checks to farmers affected by Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng. Nueva Ecija is considered the main rice growing province of the Philippines. It is also the worst hit by Ondoy and Pepeng in terms of insurance coverage by PCIC. The total indemnity paid to Nueva Ecija farmers as of October 21, 2009 is PHP9,847,631.00 while the total estimated indemnity for all remaining claims is PHP24.5M.

Atty. Bernabe and Dir. Custodio also visited San Fernando, Pampanga, the seat of the PCIC Regional Office 3, to award indemnity checks to farmers, farmers groups, Cooperatives, Irrigators Associations (IA), etc. of the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac. PCIC paid PHP5,921,365.27 worth of indemnity checks to the said beneficiaries.

In both occasions, Atty. Bernabe urged farmers to continue to support the PCIC by availing its various crop insurance products. He said that with crop insurance, the farmers need not fret of where to get the much needed capital to plant again. He also thanked the Rural Banks, Lending Institutions (LI), Cooperatives and other farmers groups who continue to support the various programs of the PCIC.

Also present during the awarding of indemnity checks were Rep. Leonila Chavez of BUTIL Partylist, Mr. Manny Jucutan, Regional Manager for Regional Office 3A and Mr. Romy Gonzales, Regional Manager for Regional Office 3. Accompanying the President were Acting Senior Vice President Norman Cajucom, OIC-Administrative Department Segundo Guerrero and Atty. Bernabe’s Assistants Gus Alunan and Nik Pangandaman.