By Manny Piñol
Samar, the country’s third largest land mass after Luzon and Mindanao, is an island of ironies.
With an area of 1.3-million hectares and endowed with so much resources, Samar’s three major local government units – the provinces of Western Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar – are all members of the country’s 10 poorest provinces.
Of the three, Eastern Samar is the poorest in the island and the second poorest in the Philippines with 55.4% poverty incidence.
The two other provinces, Western and Northern Samar, have identical poverty rate of 43.5%, meaning over 43 out of every 100 families are below the poverty threshold which is about P11,000 per year per capita.
In spite of its proximity to Luzon, Samar has not fully exploited its potentials of being a major producer of food for the hungry mouths in Metro Manila.
I will not attempt to come up with a diagnosis on why there is so much poverty in an island paradise like Samar because my knowledge about the island and its people is limited to what I saw along the way.
You see, even when I was young journalist working in Metro Manila – first with the Philippine News Agency and later with Tempo of the Manila Bulletin – I would drive all the way to Mindanao during my vacation using the Maharlika Highway or what is also known as the Pan-Philippine Highway.
In this journey I call “Biyaheng Bukid,” I passed by Samar Island again the other day on my way up to Luzon.
This time, however, I was looking at the scenes along the way with the eyes of a cabinet appointee of President-elect Rody Duterte whose task is not only to produce food but also to make sure that the producers of food are lifted from poverty.
I saw poverty along the way. People were queueing up for water in a small faucet along the road but there were so many covered basketball courts built using tens of millions of people’s money.
This is the twisted mindset in local governance now which is slowly spreading in the countryside like a deadly disease paralysing rural development and thwarting efforts to address poverty.
This is the same illness which brought back my home province, North Cotabato, to the ignominious club of the Poorest Provinces in the country from a lofty rating of No. 27 among the Top 30 in previous years.
But I will address that issue later in an apolitical but incisive analysis on the malpractices in governance which bring about massive poverty.
Let’s talk about Samar first.
When I passed by the island the other day, I saw large agricultural areas with nothing but grass, a few old coconut trees and Gmelina trees.
Judging by the vegetation, the soil is rich.
I believe that Samar has the potential of becoming a major producer of food especially so since it is close to the two major urban centres – Metro Cebu and Metro Manila.
There has to be, however, a change in the mindset of the officials and the people of the island.
In the last elections, I was told that votes were sold and bought for as much as P5,000 each.
Don’t ask me whose fault that is because that would just be like asking me which came first, the egg or the hen.
One thing is clear, the poverty of the people has to end.
President-elect Rody Duterte has promised a P1-B special fund for agriculture and livelihood for each region of the country.
I believe Samar needs more than that but I will have to validate it first.
The first thing that I will recommend to President Duterte is to declare the whole island of Samar as a Special Area for Agri/Aqua Development (SAAD), similar to the SAFDZ of old.
After President Duterte has assumed office, I will go back to Samar and lead the transformation of this very rich but poor island into a major food producer for the country.
Samar is a paradise and people should live happily ever after.
“Biyaheng Bukid” continues today.
(Photos of Samar by John Pagaduan)
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