At the onset of the Duterte administration, I shared the optimism of my good friends along with millions fellow Filipinos for a substantial and genuine change especially in agricultural policies.
President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa complex earlier this week. Out of the more than nine thousand word speech of Duterte he only mentioned the word ‘agriculture’ once.
For the past weeks, we in MASIPAG Mindanao carefully monitor the current prices of Palay and well-milled rice to see the direct impact relative to the promises made by the Duterte government upon its ratification of RA 11203 or commonly known as the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL).
The perceived “Golden Years” of Philippine agriculture is nothing but another PR circus of this administration. The current state of Philippine agriculture under Duterte-Pinol leadership is in deep crises and bankruptcy.
A couple of months ago I had a hiatus in writing in this column. The last quarter of 2018 was a terrible part of the year, forgive me I did not have enough courage to write the murders of farmers, farm-workers and a good friend farmer’s lawyer Ben Ramos. Grief and anger consumed me.
Earlier this week, Zamboanga city declared a state of calamity due to rice shortage amidst importation. Prices of rice in Zamboanga reached as high as P70 per kilo, leaving consumers especially the poor majority in a disadvantageous position.
Food insecurity among our people is not about the question on the amount of food to be produce but rather the lack of equitable access.
A recent study presented by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) concluded that the implementation of the Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law reduced rice farmers’ income by around 10%. I hate to say this on the risk of sounding arrogant but — we told you so!
We can vividly remember this administration’s campaign promise in February 2016 to provide food for every household across classes. However, as for how to fulfill such promises is another thing. With much certainty, Piñol’s PR circus cannot solve this.
One of the challenges that confront most of us during the Holiday season is having some leftover foods piling up in our fridge.
