Revive FTI! – Part 1 In 7,000+ Islands Country, Cartels Control Food Prices

In a country whose food producers are based in hundreds of remote islands with virtually no access to the big markets like Metro Manila, Government must play a critical role in the movement and repositioning of food supply and goods.
There is no other choice, or else we allow the anomalous marketing system that pervades in the country to prevail where Cartels, Traders and Middlemen control the pricing and supply of food and goods, victimizing both the farmers and the consumers.
I know that this view will ruffle the feathers of the country’s economists who advocate the Laissez-faire or free market system and who believe that trading must be left to the private sector.
The free market system marked by competitiveness could work in mature markets and ideal geographical locations but not in a country of over 7,000 islands where a P15 per kilo Carrot in Benguet becomes a P100/kilo commodity in Balintawak Market after an overnight trip over 250 kilometers.
While Vietnamese farmers from the southern tip of the country could easily bring their produce to Hanoi or even China using one rail system and a highway stretching from south to north, fishermen in Basilan have to rely on traders who buy their Galunggog for P40 cross the channel to Zamboanga City and take a long trip via the Zamboanga Peninsula then cross the sea to Dumaguete City from Dapitan and from Negros Oriental to Cebu City where the fish is sold for P180 per kilo.
This is the reality on the ground which many of our Economic Theorists and Planners could not relate with simply because they have not ventured out of their airconditioned offices to see the real world.
This was the problem which the late President Ferdinand Marcos, a visionary leader, tried to address some 60 years ago by building the Pan-Philippne Highway from Mindanao to Luzon via the San Juanico Bridge.
Then, he introduced the concept of Food Supply Consolidation and Repositioning by issuing a Presidential Decree which created the Greater Manila Terminal Food Market (GMTFM).
The GMTFM was later renamed Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) on 27 March 1974 and the company’s major activities included warehousing, food processing, research and quality control, marketing services, and trading basically serving Metro Manila consumers.
The FTI was later transferred to the National Food Authority as one of its subsidiaries but with the change of power in 1986, it fell victim to the politics of unreasonable vindictiveness which victimized even the most critical and useful government programs.
By 1989, food trading and food processing operations, including live animal slaughtering, of the FTI were suspended followed by the closure of the cold storage services were also suspended in 2004.
The lack of foresight and appreciation of the critical importance of the FTI led to several attempts by previous administrations to sell off part of the property, including a public auction in 2009, but they all failed.
In November 2012, the Philippine government announced the sale of the 74 hectares of the 120 hectares property to Ayala Land, Inc. (ALI) for P24.3 billion.
When the NFA was transferred back to the DA in September 2018, along with it the FTI, I summoned the FTI officials to my office to discuss the plan to revive the FTI in Greater Metro Manila Area and to establish at least six more Regional Food Terminals all over the country.
The plan, however, did not push through, just like the Solar-Powered Irrigation System (SPIS) and the National Fertilizer Loaning Program, following my resignation as Agriculture Secretary in Aug. 2019.
(In our final article on the FTI tomorrow, I will discuss how it could be easily reactivated and function as the great balancer and corrective mechanism in a trader-conrtrolled market economy.)
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(File photos of FTI were downloaded from the public websites. Other photos show me as then Secretary of Agriculture in a huddle with FTI executives led by Gen. Raymundo Ferrer.)