Former agri chiefs welcome move by Marcos to assume DA post temporarily
President-elect and incoming Agriculture Secretary Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr may change the mindset of officials to stop relying on importing agricultural products if there are problems, former Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor said.
“We believe that the pandemic and the war in Russia and Ukraine should stop already this kind of thinking (that) we should rely more on external sources for our food supply rather than depending on our own local producers. Some of his economic advisers, who are of the old school, most of them have an open-trading, neo-liberalism mindset. The president, we hope and we are confident will put an end to that,” Montemayor said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
“At one point, he said he wouldn’t mind suspending the Rice Tariffication Law because he saw how unbridled the rice importation, you know, brought such a degree of suffering to our farmers. That in our own studies, most farmers lost about one-fourth of their incomes, because with all of these imported rice coming in, it brought about depression in local rice prices,” he added.
Montemayor and Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) President Rosendo So welcomed Marcos' move to temporarily be agriculture secretary.
“To me, it shows the president-elect’s decisiveness in dealing with the deep-seated and long-standing issues in our agriculture and the fishery sector. So, we might say he is literally taking the bull by its horns,” Montemayor said.
So said that he sees a “good future” for the DA because corruption has worsened.
“I think the president should help because the farmers are buying fake fertilizer and of course our borders control from other country, we don’t have any border control. Smuggling and our agri industry has a big problem of the diseases. So I think it is a good…we saw a good future from our president acting as the concurrent secretary,” So said in the same interview.
Montemayor said the DA should be reorganized as a whole, even though it would take time to make it capable of facing the new challenges that have emerged in agriculture.
“Maybe review how to bring all of the various bureaus and the agencies in the DA together in a complementary manner in order to maximize whatever will be the priorities and commodities to be decided upon by the president-elect. Greater coordination to make sure that each agency is accountable for the role that has been assigned to it,” Montemayor said.
For So, the Bureau of Plant Industry and the Bureau of Animal Industry are two agencies need to be reorganized.
He also underscored the importance of communication between the private sector and the DA.
“Now there is no communication because the private sector doesn’t have confidence (in the DA),” So said.
Montemayor said Marcos should choose a “second-layer” of DA subordinates so there would be no delay in making decisions.
“I think he wants to talk with the producers group in our country and to reassess the situation. I think that would be good and he wants to put people inside the agency that could handle the pressure and do the job well,” So said.
According to Montemayor and So, Marcos has had enough experience and would be competent enough to manage the DA because of his experience as Ilocos Norte governor based on their talks with him during and after his presidential campaign.
In a related development, Emmanuel Pinol, a former agriculture secretary, said that Marcos’ decision to take over the DA was a “brilliant move”.
Pinol said it would be like a shortcut for the DA since the president-elect would not have to go through economic managers, the Development and Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) and the Congress before getting the budget approved.
“This is a big break for agriculture actually. This is unprecedented. This is the first time in the history of the country that the president has assumed the position in a concurrent capacity of DA secretary. And I believe that this is a big boost to the agriculture sector,” he said in an interview with CNN Philippines.
He added that the development of agriculture would be the foundation of Marcos' post-pandemic recovery plan.
Pinol said Marcos would have to focus on rice and basic food commodities such as fish, poultry, meat, fruits and vegetables.
The Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) would be a “critical agency to ensure food sufficiency and food supply stability in this country,” Pinol said.
He said that the FTI would greatly help in the logistics of agricultural products.
"Why is this critical to our food sufficiency program? Because our problem in the country is not really the lack of food but the very difficult process of transporting goods, commodities from one island to another," Pinol said. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
