‘I WILL PERSONALLY HANDLE
SAMAR AGRI DEVELOPMENT’
By Manny Piñol
Secretary of Agriculture
Kidapawan City – The weekend rest in my farm here at the foot of Mt. Apo has given me time to think of ways to address the Samar Paradox.
I was in the isolated town of Jipapad, Eastern Samar on Tuesday to check on the needs of the flood victims.
During the long trip from Tacloban City and back, I kept asking myself “How could an Island of 1.5-million hectares so rich in resources have three of the 10 Poorest Provinces in the country?”
It was actually my Samar politician friends themselves who provided me the answer to the question.
There is no intention on my part to offend my Samar politician friends but unless the bull is held by its horns, the people of the island will never rise out of poverty.
The Island’s vast resources will never be utilised in the country’s efforts to produce more food.
The culprit behind Samar’s poverty is the corrupted political system where political leaders, however upright and noble their intentions are, could not win elections if they do not buy votes.
Voters also feel that it is just fair that politicians pay for their votes because they do not get much projects and services anyway.
In Samar, people get between P5,000 to P25,000 per vote.
In fact, in the last barangay elections, votes were acquired for P3,000 to P5,000.
This leads people to ask: How in the world will the politicians recover the money used in buying votes?
One does not need to be like the genius Einstein to figure out the answer.
It becomes an endless roundabout where the residents and the politicians cannot get out from.
Someone has to step in and cut the vicious cycle and I believe that it is my agency, the Department of Agriculture, which could do it.
The DA in the past, however, including some agencies under it, also joined the corruption roundabout.
In fact, the Philippine Coconut Authority officials in Region VIII during the previous administration, are now under investigation for ghost deliveries of Coconut seedlings as part of the Typhoon Yolanda Rehabilitation.
Today, I have made a decision: I will have to step up and handle the Samar Development Project myself.
Right after the trip from Samar Tuesday, I proceeded to the PhilRice station in Bukidnon to reserve rice seeds for the Typhoon Samuel affected towns of the island.
Just like what we are doing in Marawi, I will pull out some equipment available from neighboring regions and form a fleet of machinery and equipment to “attack” the underdeveloped rice farms of Samar.
By 2019, DA will target 100,000 hectares of rice fields for development.
The DA will deploy farm machinery, including small irrigation facilities, introduce high-yielding seeds and field technicians.
This early, I would like to beg for understanding by our local political leaders: We will work with you and coordinate with you but please give the DA the elbow room to implement this.
I will return to Samar by the second week of December and perhaps mark my 65th birthday in Catubig, Samar’s rice granary with an unfinished billion-peso irrigation system.
My plan initially was to climb Mt. Apo for the 16th time on December 16 just to test myself if I am still up to the challenge of climbing tall mountains.
Samar, however, looks more challenging.
Developing Samar from one of the poorest areas of the country into a field of productivity is the tougher mountain to conquer!
(Photos were taken during my visit to Jipapad, Eastern Samar and at the PhilRice Station in Maramag, Bukidnon.)
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