Original Posting March 1, 2017
Over the past two decades hunger has been a fact of life for more than 40% of people in this paradisic Philippine archipelago. The situation is not getting any better. We are farther and farther from reaching the zero hunger goal of any social revolution worth its name. Is the Duterte Revolution going to be different? Gardeners discuss.
The Duterte Revolution is on, no doubt about it. The big noise now is in the areas of illegal drugs, mutinous policemen, and armies of trolls and extra-judicial killers. Did Digong read the famous lines two score and seven years ago that “a revolution is not a picnic” nor is it as civil and polite as “writing an essay” or academically debating an issue? He did not have to. By a native instinctual savvy he seems to have always known that a revolution is a strong, decisive violent act that turns an existing order upside down. A revolution is often violent because it feels that it knows where it is going and is rushing there – setting aside niceties like legal procedures in the interests of effectivity.
A revolution is “not a dinner party or painting a picture, or doing embroidery,” said Mao Zedong. “It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an act of violence” by which an old order is toppled and a new one installed.
A revolution is for “people” and its targets are “enemies of the people.” The two, in this view, are not the same, nor should they be treated in the same way. The former are “humans” while, unexpressed, the latter are not. In this view, to reiterate, the two simply are not the same.
Down through history in many parts of the world, once this threshold of thinking and feeling was reached by enough number of true believers, one could only expect a dramatic rise in the number of the dead and the murdered and a collective violent impatience to usher in the “new” dispensation.
In this view all the violence now can be justified by the establishment later of a non-violent order. Meantime “the end justifies the means” because, in this view, if it does not, what does? The means cannot justify itself for that would be the height of immorality; it is the end that does. Isn’t it all, then, a matter of proportionality and balance? This simply means that you can’t be effective using a shotgun to kill a fly or a water pistol to stop mad dogs. Don’t worry: you will soon feel safer because of all the killings. The important thing is you know whom you serve – the people, not the enemies of the people. The old order must go, and the past few months of more than 7,000 dead are just a start – maybe even a poor start.
Can this “revolutionary decisiveness and intensity” find application then beyond the drugs scene? Will it be felt in food and agriculture, in labor and social justice issues? In the care of the environment the appointment of Ms. Gina Lopez is more than symbolic. In agriculture and food a close friend of the President was taken on board to lead the way – a farmer and a journalist, a former Mayor of his town and former Governor of his province, Emmanuel “Manny” Piňol.
Irrigation
Piňol hit the ground running with his views on irrigation. He knows just how important water is for agriculture. As governor, Piñol helped push the Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in Cotabato area. He knows that the probability of being nonpoor for farmers increases when they till irrigated land. Farmers who till irrigated lands are thrice more likely to be nonpoor than those who till non-irrigated lands.
As it is, 30% of all rice lands produce 60% of total domestic rice production. The remaining 70% of rice lands produce only 40% of total national rice production. The 30% are irrigated and the 70% are not.
Therefore, quite simply, if we increased the number of irrigated farms ASAP, we would easily become exporters instead of remaining importers of rice.
But, of course, irrigation costs. The Duterte Revolutionary approach then would be to make it free for rice farmers. The Free Irrigation Program was part of the Duterte campaign and Sec. Manny hastened to implement it as soon as it was announced he would head Agriculture. And who would oppose such a scheme? Who? The National Irrigation Administration, no less – that’s who!
NIA, which is a government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC), collects P1.8 billion to P2 billion in irrigation fees annually – 60 percent of which it uses for employees’ salaries and allowances, with only 40% or less going for operations and maintenance of existing irrigation systems nationwide. At the same time its mandate is very clear – to provide irrigation to produce food for the people. Thus Piňol instructed NIA’s top guys to think out of the box – to design a strategy for free irrigation by 2017. The stealthy “debate,” not all smiles, continued all the way to the bank – to the Congressional Appropriations Committee.
There Sec. Manny saw again what he called a “sinister attempt to derail” the Duterte Revolution in Agriculture. He discovered during the Dept. of Agriculture Budget hearing on Aug. 25th that “the additional P4-B intended to cover the Irrigation Service Fees was not included in the NIA budget for 2017.” What he did was to “immediately manifest during the hearing my position as Agriculture Secretary that Free Irrigation is a commitment of President Duterte to the Filipino farmers and that it must be fulfilled. Luckily for the Filipino farmers, all of the Congressmen present during the hearing – administration, opposition and even the party list representatives – were all supportive of the Free Irrigation advocacy of the President.”
“Roma locuta,” it used to be said, “causa finita.” [“Rome has spoken, end of debate.]In a revolutionary situation, even without a revolutionary government, once the leader has spoken, give way to the revolutionary line. It is not a question of following something arbitrary.
Will there really be free irrigation for farmers this year, 2017? That remains to be seen, for it is not happening yet, not even this late. And will not corporate farms have to pay?
Hunger and A Closer Look At Some Of The Neglect And Shortcomings
Overall the past two decades hunger is a fact of life for more than 40% of people in this paradisic Philippine archipelago. The situation is not getting any better. We are far from reaching the zero hunger goal of any social revolution worth its name.
From food net exporter in times past the Philippines has become a net agricultural importer today of mainly rice, beef, corn, pork, dressed chicken, wheat, soybean oil, milk and cream and a whole lot more one sees on the table. These imports amount to some US$ 9.632-billion annually whereas our exports of mainly coconut oil, banana, tuna, and pineapple amount to only US$ 6.546-billion for a trade deficit of US$3.085-billion.
It is well-known that when Presidents brag about the country’s economic growth the agriculture sector is the grim downer. For instance, it registered a negative 4.4% last year in the first quarter when total growth was almost 5%. Should we not blame such ugly performance on El Nino and La Nina, the two brats of drought and heavy rains that keep Philippine agriculture down? Yes, why not? Sec Manny could accept that but not without having first noted “the neglect and misdirection by previous leaders who also made very ill-advised investments and implemented poorly-planned projects in the past.”
Indeed it is very instructive to scan Sec. Manny’s reports. Let’s consider a few: over P2-B worth of farm implements, including very expensive rice and corn harvesters, were kept in the DA regional compounds all over the country, undistributed simply because of would-be recipients’ incapacity to put up the 15% cash equity needed so that the equipment could be released to them.
And, Piňol says, “Add to that the modern rice processing centers which are not operational until today simply because the farmer beneficiaries do not have the money to connect the facility to a power line.”
A third case, costly infrastructures that remain non-functional such as the P800-M Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center and 20 other similar trading centers all over the country costing the government billions of pesos.
Another item: hundreds of millions of pesos wasted in the purchase of livestock from other countries – goats, sheep, and cattle both for meat and dairy – which were grossly overpriced. “Worse,” Sec Manny says, “they were passed off as materials for genetic improvement when, in truth, many of the goats were of very poor quality and mostly crossbreds.”
Fifthly, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), supposedly the farming knowledge improvement arm of the DA, was “spending its money on non-essential projects like the making of candies instead of focusing on the technology transfer and training of farmers in modern rice and corn farming, vegetable production and fisheries. With a budget of about P1.6-B, the ATI was a dismal failure and hardly contributed to the upgrading of the skills of the farmers and the fisher folk, an important factor in attaining greater productivity.”
Sixthly, the Dept. of Agriculture virtually abandoned the high-value crops sector. It is only now that something is being done as in the programmed establishment of a regional laboratory in Davao City for plant and animal diseases, and soil and water analysis.
Seventh, the fisheries sector hardly received any support from the Dept. of Agriculture. Fishpond operators could not even get production loans from government banks. Only the big fishpond and fish cages operators who had the money to finance their business survived and developed. And, quite rightly, many of them are now in trouble with Secretary Gina Lopez. Today, Sec. Manny is rushing fiberglass fishing boats to as many fisher folk as he can reach.
Sec. Pinol lamented: “I could list down many more shortcomings by government which ultimately led to the spiraling downfall of the agriculture and fisheries sector if only to emphasize what needs to be done to reverse the downtrend. I am learning from their mistakes and hopefully, with proper planning and consultation, we will be able to reverse the situation. What needs to be done is to really focus on the President’s commitment: Available and Affordable Food for the Filipino People.”
Agrarian Credit
To attain that goal, there will be a need for timely agrarian credit. Sec. Manny has set aside the availability of Php 15000 per farm per hectare per season for hybrid seeds and aquaculture on a non-bank basis.
Households who have access to credit are more likely to be nonpoor. The odds of a household being nonpoor are .72 points higher when the household has access to credit.
The timely supply of credit at reasonable interest rates is a vital measure in food production.
In the past, our small farmers depended on their former landowners for credit. Today, because we haven’t really implemented the support service aspect of agrarian reform effectively, the majority of farmers depend on usurers for rural credit. They do so because usurers know the paramount importance of timely loans for agriculture. “Five-six” operations which are so rampant continually attest to the almost total irrelevance of our banking system as far as the majority of small farmers are concerned.
Government support funds should not be coursed through traditional banks which have defined the small farmers as frankly “unbankable” or they will hardly make a dent in the improvement of the farmers’ lot. This is the classic case of the end being frustrated by inappropriate means.
For one thing, in the name of avoiding the dreaded word “dole-out” – government often ends up transmuting support funds into well-nigh impossible loans: that take so long in approval, that cannot be released on time, that scare away small farmers who cannot effectively tackle the seemingly interminable paperwork.
Hence the incredible continuing scandal of Filipino farmers waiting for Indian creditors who fly from thousands of miles away and arrive in their barangays at bicycle speed to release farmers’ loans on time even at usurious rates (“five-six”).
And not quite underscored enough these days is the fact that more than 80% of cash costs incurred by the small rice farmer go to chemical fertilizers that deplete the organic matter of his soil and make him more dependent, in a manner worse than drug addiction, on more and more of the same chemical fertilizers that cause an increase in production but even more so in production costs. Farmers can’t help concluding that all-too-often working so hard and spending so much may not be worth it at all. Hence, our massive importations and food insecurity.
In the Philippines, particularly, the rice producer, for instance, is also the rice consumer and often may not be able to make up his feelings about importation of cheaper rice… not knowing how to bring down the cost of production that surely affects product pricing.
But if small farmers are sincerely assisted to have good framework conditions arising from small farms consolidation such as affordable credits, good seeds and other agricultural inputs friendly to the environment, and access to marketing facilities their yields per hectare may even be much higher than the yields in super-big-sized modern agriculture. The UN-FAO has had many studies attesting to this.
Who Will Conduct the Agrarian Revolution?
Under EO 1, the Cabinet secretary—a post currently held by Secretary Jun Evasco—will supervise the following agencies:
Cooperative Development Authority
Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council
National Anti-Poverty Commission
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples
National Commission on Muslim Filipinos
National Food Authority
National Youth Commission
Office of the President – Presidential Action Center
Philippine Commission on Women
Philippine Coconut Authority
Presidential Commission on the Urban Poor
Technical Education Skills Development Authority
The 12 agencies are tasked to evaluate existing poverty reduction programs and formulate projects that seek to reduce poverty and improve the lives of the most venerable sectors of the society.
“They shall conduct consultations with LGUs for the proper allocation of resources and program implementation and recommend courses of action for the government to adopt to achieve a sustainable system of meeting the needs of the people, while ensuring resiliency for vulnerable communities,” the EO states.
The revolutionary from the “Republic of Bohol,” the great island of Mindanao, and the notorious City of Davao Death Squads takes over, cabinet secretaries in the various departments notwithstanding. The focus changes target and theme – no longer in the details discussed above so much as in the strengthening of a political movement for change (KP or Kilusang Pagbabago). In-depth discussions and serious action programs take a back seat to sloganeering, rallies and demonstrations. It seems, therefore, that the Duterte Revolution is not yet in the chapter of socio-economic transformation. It is very much stuck in the insecure job of political consolidation, appointing to key positions not so much those who can manage and govern as much as those who’ve shown enough “loyalty” in past Duterte campaigns under the leadership of “CabSec” Evasco. Therefore nothing is sure as yet in the latest Philippine revolutionary project. It bears watching and reading, inviting you to participation or opposition. FINIS