Lawmakers want probe on Agri Engineering Act
-A A +AWednesday, July 11, 2012
TWO lawmakers are pushing for an investigation on the exclusion of the provisions of Republic Act 8559, or the Philippine Agricultural Engineering Act of 1998, in the revised implementing rules and regulation of the National Building Code of the Philippines.
Representative Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro, 2nd district) and Representative Maximo Rodriguez Jr. (Abante Mindanao party-list) said the exclusion of RA 8559 in the revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has deprived agricultural engineers from practicing their profession in the implementation of the National Building Code of the Philippines.
It was learned that the Board of Agricultural Engineering (BOAE) and the Philippine Society of Agricultural Engineers (PSAE) for the last 20 years have persistently requested the DPWH on the enforcement of RA 8559 as part of the implementation of the National Building Code.
However, Rodriguez said until now, this remains unaddressed which prevented the agricultural engineers from practicing their profession.
Under RA 8559, the management or supervision and the preparation of engineering designs, plans, specifications, project studies and estimates for agricultural, aquaculture and fishery, forest product machinery, agricultural buildings and structures, farm electrification and energy systems, agricultural processing equipment, irrigation and soils conservation systems and facilities, agricultural waste utilization systems and facilities constitute the practice of agricultural engineering.
It also directs relation in the implementation of the National Building Code of the Philippines insofar as in the design, construction, alteration, repair, conversion, use, occupancy, maintenance of agricultural buildings and structures and in the issuance of permits by the local building officials is concerned.
“There is a need to look into this matter by the proper committee of the House of Representatives,” Rodriguez said.
Published in the Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro newspaper on July 11, 2012.
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