We join peasant groups in welcoming the declaration of President Bongbong Marcos to quickly address problems confronting the agriculture sector, seen as neglected and misdirected.
In his inaugural address last week, the 64-year-old President had noted that the country’s agriculture sector “cries for urgent attention that its neglect and misdirection now demands, adding “food self-sufficiency has been the key promise of every administration (although none but one delivered.”
Quick like some thunderbolt, the national farmers group Kilusan Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan, told media, “Hearing the highest elected public official of the land accept the reality that the sector has been neglected and misdirected is a good starting point.”
The President earlier on announced he was taking over the Cabinet portfolio of the Department of Agriculture in a concurrent capacity, obviously aware of reports that smuggling and other anomalies are a challenge in the department.
Danny Carranza, secretary general of the Kilusan, added, “For ordinary farmers, the end of neglect is the start of giving small farmers and the agriculture sector the needed attention and priority, while the end of misdirection means giving local food producers priority over an importation policy that results in farmers’ losses.”
We heard Carranza blame the predecessor Duterte administration for most of the farmers’ woes, while noting that liberalization of agricultural trade policies that allowed entry of foreign agricultural products into the country increased during the past six years from 2016.
At the same time, Carranza urged BBM to quickly review the Rice Tariffication Law and aggressively implement the agrarian reform program.
The program is aimed at liberating the farmers from the bondage of the soil and check the rampant conversion of agricultural lands into non-agricultural uses. in the West Philippine Sea.
Like the Kilusan we will wait and monitor the realization of the President’s goal, particularly in relation to the liberalization of agricultural trade.
Of course we are also aware of fishers’ groups lament that BBM, in their view, failed to mention in his inaugural speech their right to fish in the West Philippine Sea.
According to Bobby Roldan, vice chair of Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, or Pamalakaya, in Luzon, while BBM laid out some of the pressings issues besetting the country, he failed to touch on what the groups call the real and present threat to Philippine sovereignty.
In a statement, Roldan said, “Even in Passing, the foreign occupation in the West Philippine Sea and its direct impact on the livelihood of Filipino fishers and domestic fishing production were not brought up in hius 25-minutes speech.”
Most of the fishermen in Zambales, lapped by the waters of the West Philippine Sea, have stopped meanwhile their fishing journeys and sought other jobs they believe could be more sustainable than fishing, given their inability to afford the rising petrol prices.
On the unabated rise in crude oil prices on the world market, BBM said the Philippines “can find a way” around its energy supply problems and hinted on exploring for oil and gas, pointing to the Malampaya project in Palawan which has tapped the country’s only gas reserves, expected to be depleted in a few years.
We hold high our hope and faith the President has the will to lead the country to a “future of sufficiency.”