Fisher’s group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamalakaya (PAMALAKAYA) lambasted President-elect Marcos’s decision to act as agriculture secretary at the start of his term. They said that aside from Marcos’s lack of experience in the sector, he has never presented concrete plans to resolve the sector’s worsening woes.
PAMALAKAYA pointed out that Marcos has consistently proven himself to be ignorant of the actual state of agriculture in the Philippines. He has made several false statements about solutions to the sector’s problems in the past.
In an interview for DZRJ last March 8, Marcos claimed that Galunggong was the easiest fish to raise. “We occupy, we are an archipelagic country. Ang pinakamadaling alagaan ay galunggong. Hindi ba pangmahirap nga dapat ‘yan? You can get that anywhere, di ba, tapos nag-i-import tayo,” said the President-elect.
This claim, however, is false. A post from the Department of Agriculture website itself said that growing Galunggong was still in its early experimental stages.
Marcos Jr. also proposed to bring back his father’s Masagana 99 program, where rural banks provided loans for farmers to help them boost their technology. He called it a huge success and said that he plans to push for similar programs under his administration.
Despite its initial success, however, Marcos failed to mention how the program bankrupted 800 rural banks. As National Scientist Emil Javier wrote, “Masagana 99 proved to be short-lived and unsustainable mainly due to the costly subsidies and failure of many farmers-borrowers to repay the loans . . . By [1980], Masagana 99 ceased to be of consequence as only 3.7% of the small rice farmers were able to borrow.”
READ: https://sinag.press/news/…/short-lived-and…/
The President-elect also said during the campaign that he wants to bring rice prices down to 20 to 30 pesos per kilo, an ungrounded proposal consistently debunked by experts.
Current Department of Agriculture Secretary William Dar said that it was outright impossible, while Albay Congressman Joey Salceda said that doing so would kill the livelihood of the 3.6 million farmers in the country.
At present, farmers continue to bear the brunt of the Duterte administration’s neoliberal policies, severely devaluing their profit and worsening harassment, intimidation, and attacks against them.
Last June 9, more than 90 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB), journalists, and land reform advocates were illegally arrested during a land cultivation activity in Hacienda Tinang in Concepcion, Tarlac. The farmers have already been certified as some of the 236 who were already granted the Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA).
These were hindered implementation by mayor-elect Noel Villanueva, a close ally of incoming Marcos-appointed Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) secretary Conrado Estrella III.
PAMALAKAYA asserts that the next agriculture chief “must be no less than competitive and grounded to the rural sectors.”
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) also condemned Marcos’s announcement, saying that if Marcos becomes the agriculture secretary, he would only worsen the country’s hunger problem.
They said that Marcos’ plan not to appoint an agriculture secretary and head the department himself means one of two things: he is unprepared for his administration and unable to find a suitable agriculture secretary, or he is too power hungry to let go of such an important agency.
“In both cases, Marcos Jr. is grossly unqualified to face the food crisis which various experts have warned will worsen. He has no track record whatsoever in agriculture to stand upon. In his many years as a legislator, he has not authored or co-authored any law beneficial to farmers. He has ignored even the Free Irrigation Services Act (FISA). Despite his many years in the local government of Ilocos, its farm lots remain among the smallest, and its farm workers receive among the lowest wages,” they said in a statement.
They also lambasted Marcos for trying to distort history and claim that his father’s era was the golden age of agriculture instead of providing actual solutions. They highlighted Marcos, Jr.’s lack of experience as he set himself up to “face the unprecedented crisis in Philippine agriculture.”
KMP asserts only worsened peasant poverty, nationwide hunger, and brazen “golden age posturings” will prosper under Marcos II’s administration.
Despite their doubts, groups challenged the incoming president to fulfill his promise of fixing the agriculture sector.
“If he is sincere to head the agriculture department, he must renounce the import-liberalization policies that hurt the rural sectors. He should take decisive measures that will strengthen and uplift the productivity of local farmers and fishers across the country,” said PAMALAKAYA.
Featured image by The Philippine Star
