Being serious

"The light at the end of the tunnel will not be visible until the middle of 2022 — just around the time we pick a new leader."

Given the effects of the pandemic on virtually all aspects of our lives, from the economy and the higher incidence of poverty, to strained government finances due to lower revenues amid growing needs, to the over-stretched health system, and many more, it would seem quite evident, despite otherwise hopeful forecasts, that the light at the end of the tunnel will not be visible until the middle of 2022.

That coincides with the election of a new president, given that our Constitution proscribes a second term for President Duterte. With a new president equipped with a fresh mandate from the people, hope is always rekindled even in the most difficult of times. Not that the incumbent leader failed, but the effects of a pandemic as severe as COVID-19 has affected not only our country but the entire world as well, creating a domino effect that will affect all economies for a long time despite the discovery of vaccines.

Our colleague in these opinion pages of the Manila Standard, my friend Tony Lopez, has opened the floodgates of the election season when he published in the cover of his BizNews Asia the pictures and names of nine “presidentiables.”

Last Monday, I wrote about one of those personalities, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, as “The Outlier” not only among legislators but in the praxis of Philippine politics as well.

So in this column, we might as well write about each of these personalities that BizNews Asia suggests would be slugging it out, pre-campaign and actual campaign, for the presidency in 2022. Getting into the groove of the political season, we will do so every Monday hereafter.

Since I have described Ping Lacson as “the outlier,” I shall henceforth write about the “pugilist,” the “assistant,” the “son,” the “daughter,” the “adopted,” the “businesswoman,” the “widow,” the “new kid” and the “mechanic” – not necessarily in that order. I shall confine my articles to those personalities enumerated by Tony Lopez, without precluding the entry of other names in the presidential wannabe arena which starts warming up after our fireworks-free New Year rings in.

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Last week, I presided over a meeting of the Executive Board of the Food and Fertilizer Technology Center in its headquarters in Taipei. The Executive Board is chaired by the head of Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture, Minister Chen Chi-chung. As the agriculture minister had to attend to the defense of his budget before the Legislative Yuan, the Board asked me to preside over this 50-year old research and development institute of which the Philippines through the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, is a member.

The new Executive Director of FFTC is one of Taiwan’s leading soil technology experts who has worked in the famous Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute and once headed the international affairs bureau of the Council of Agriculture, Dr. Su-san Chang.

Despite the limitations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic that has created difficulties in engaging directly with agricultural research leaders of member-countries, Dr. Chang was able to utilize virtual conferences to update the members with new developments, particularly in the promotion of circular agriculture, which means nothing goes to waste in farms.

The lead agency in the Philippines that relates to FFTC is our PCARRD, under Dr. Rey Ebora, attached to our Department of Science and Technology under Sec. Fortunato de la Pena.

Aside from approving the budget and administrative matters for the incoming 2021, the Board listened to the report of Dr. Chang on the accomplishments of 2020 and the projects for the coming calendar years.

COVID-19 has disrupted food production in most of the world, and unless countries adopt modern agricultural technologies seriously in the next few years, the world could experience food shortages.

Adopting to the “new normal” involves “smart” technology, precision agricultural systems, fostering circular agriculture, improvement of logistics and in the Philippines this includes cold chain propagation, which thankfully Sec. Dar and the DA are now jumpstarting. It also involves adapting to changes in consumer patterns and behavior in the processing of food products, and packaging as well.

For our marginalized farming community, one of the biggest challenges is the lack of manpower, as farming has become non-profitable, and the dream of every farmer is to send his son to work as a blue-collar worker abroad, an OFW earning foreign currency instead of suffering from the drudgery of farm labor.

Taiwan also has a shortage of farm workers, which is why aside from potential harnessing of contract workers from neighboring Southeast Asian countries, they have gone into smart agriculture which uses high technology and artificial intelligence in farming. And the results have been astoundingly successful.

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Other than Taiwan, which has been a leader in precision agriculture and R and D over the last three decades, a country which has shown amazing growth in agriculture is Vietnam.

Aside from being the world’s leader along with Thailand in rice production and exports, Vietnam is now the world’s second largest producer and exporter of coffee, as well as rubber, and even dragon fruit, a high-value crop they started planting only a few years back.

Vietnam now has a higher per-capita GDP than the Philippines, which is an amazing feat considering that two generations ago, they were caught in a vicious war where hundreds of thousands died, and it was only in 1975 when the North and South were united after the defeat of the Americans. Prior to that, Vietnam defeated and expelled their colonialist, France, and for hundreds of years, the Vietnamese never stopped fighting China’s warlords.

When we were attending Asean conferences in the past, we would refer to VMLC as the less-developed countries of Southeast Asia, referring to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. During the term of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III, I would jokingly remark to fellow Filipino confreres that soon, VMLC could turn into PMLC, at the rate our country and government neglected so many aspects of modernization, from agriculture to infrastructure to catching up with smart technologies, let alone the unequal distribution of income.

Vietnam is now the largest recipient of foreign direct investments among the Asean countries. Watch Myanmar as well when it gets better governance.

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I close this piece with a brief observation from my former superior in Malacanang, Ronaldo B. Zamora, an esteemed political and governance mentor:

“The problem with us Filipinos is that we never seem to be serious about anything that really matters.”

Amen to that.