By Manny Piñol
The island of Samar holds a distinction of sort not only as the third largest island in the country but also as the only island where three of its provinces belong to the 20 Poorest Provinces.
Consider these figures: Northern Samar’s poverty incidence is 61%, Eastern Samar has 50% while Western Samar has 49.5%, according to the latest poverty statistics released by the Philippine Statistical Authority.
This means that in Northern Samar, 61 families out of every 100 are living below the poverty threshold of P14,000 per year and could hardly send their children to school or assure their family of three meals a day.
Actually, you do not have to check on PSA data to know that these provinces are poor.
In the case of Northern Samar, one only has to look at the people lining up for water flowing from small faucets along the side of the road, the poorly developed farms and the people living in shanty-like houses along the side of the national highway, to realize that poverty is prevalent.
As a former political leader myself, I believe that rural poverty is mainly a result of either neglect by the national government or misguided governance and corruption by local officials.
I have to be very brutally frank about this. Unless the practice by local politicians of buying votes during elections for as high as P!5,000 per household is ended, a locality will be locked in an endless cycle of neglect and poverty.
A politician buys votes to win an election and the poor sell their votes because that is the only time they get something from the polticiian. The vicious cycle goes on and on.
So, how will the Presidency of Rody Duterte end this endless cycle of corruption and poverty?
I was in Catarman, Northern Samar last Thursday on a two-day working visit and I came up with a very simple formula to change things: people must be lifted out of poverty for them to be able to stand up to the temptation of selling their votes on election day and empower them to vote for leaders who could truly serve them.
This is the reason why we have included the three Samar provinces in the program called Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) which gives special focus on the country’s poorest provines, aside from the usual programs they get from the Department of Agriculture.
Politicians cannot be expected to intiaite the change because for as long as people sell their votes, they will continue buying votes to ensure their political survival.
I have designated a former priest, Assistant Secretary Lerey Panes, to handle the program.
I have appointed a new regional director for the Leyte-Samar Region to support the program, cancer survivor Dr. Wilson Cerbito who is partnered with Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Director John Albaladejo to support Panes.
The SAAD program in Northern Samar has been given P100-M, a fund which will be handled by a Project Management Office of the DA to be established in Catarman.
Panes, Cerbito and Albaladejo were tasked with the following:
1. Organize a team which would conduct values formation and indoctrination program for poor farmers and fishermen before they are given livelihood projects. This team will conduct teach-ins much like what the New People’s Army (NPA) does in the countryside.
2. Upgrade the skills and improve the techonology of farmers and fishermen through actual field demonstration. In Northern Samar, for example, I saw that rice farmers still use the primitive method called “Payatak” where they use four to five carabaos to step on the mud until it is ready for planting, then they plant and abandon the field coming back only when it is time to harvest. The result – harvest of only about 1.5-metric tons per hectare, a far cry from the already very low national average of 3.9-metric tons.
I have directed Cerbito to establish techno-demo farms in every rice growing town of Samar to actually show the farmers the modern rice farming technology which could yield as much as 6 to 8 tons per hectare per harvest.
3. Distribute more fiberglass fishing bancas to the poorest families who will be identified through the Fishermen Registration Program being undertaken by the BFAR. The initial target is 500 bancas.
Ice-making and cold storage facilities will also be established along with the introduction of modern fish drying, packaging and canning technology to give added value to their catch.
4. Provide easy access financing to the farmers and fishermen. Last Thursday in Catarman, the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) under Executive Director Joyce Badiola opened an initial P200-M loan facility which could be accessed by farmers without collaterals through farmers and fishermen’s associations or cooperatives.
5. Link up farmers and fishermen with the market so that they will not be subjected to the manipulation of local traders and middlemen.
The DA’s target is to reduce Northern Samar’s poverty incidence by 25% by the end of 2019.
This is not going to be easy and it is not going to be quick.
But this transformation must be done now that we have a President who is sincere in really lifting up the poorest of the poor to a level where they will regain their dignity as proud Filipinos and as human beings.
(Photos of Catarman, Northern Samar forum taken by John Pagaduan.)
More Stories
Practical Farming: Turn Used Plastic Containers Into Life-Time Laying Nests!
Super Bulb Onion Grown In Alamada, North Cotabato
Kapehan With Pareng Gob