Our biggest tragedy as a people is that 124 years after our nation’s birth, we still could not decide on what we would like to be.
We are in an eternal limbo, much like fresh graduates from high school who could not make up their minds on whether to become an engineer, a lawyer, a priest, dancer or a pilot.
The absence of a national goal results in programs which at best are knee jerk reactions to a prevailing and temporary problem.
For example, to address unemployment, our educational system shifted to technical courses, even short-term training for caretakers, so that the young graduates could be deployed for jobs abroad.
To address poverty, our planners adopted a dole-out program which, instead of making people productive, turned them into a mass of mendicants who line up under the heat of the sun infront of the ATMs to get their monthly subsidies from government.
Our economic planners are so obsessed with the inflation numbers, credit ratings and other economic indicators thus resulting in pallatives rather than long-term programs.
Worse, to ensure sufficient food supply, we come up with policies which make us dependent on foreign producers not realizing that these same products could be produced by our own people.
Our Medium and Long Term Development Goals are mostly abstract targets which revolve around reducing poverty.
Reducing poverty and making life better for Fiipinos should be our target as a nation.
But the question is how do we achieve that?
Our service-oriented economy, our dependence on the global food market policy, our obsession with the FDIs and our dream of generating revenues through the promotion of tourism crumbled in the face of a Pandemic which restricted the movement of people.
In the face of this reality, one area which had been neglected and derisively looked down by our economic thinkers, Agriculture, showed admirable resiliency.
I remember I had a “viberal” exchange with a fellow Cabinet Secretary who ridiculed Agriculture by saying: “The economy is firing on all cylinders with one exception, Agriculture.”
For that, he got an angry retort from me as I challenged him to focus and increase funding on Philippine Agriculture, higher than his anomalous flood control projects.
Agriculture and fisheries proved to be the most resilient sector in the Philippine economy and the reasons are very clear.
In times of a Pandemic or a Calamity which could restrict movement and affect the Global Supply Chain, there is one thing people could not live without – Food.
People will opt not to travel, refrain from going to the movies and stop going to resorts but they cannot stop eating.
Agriculture and Fisheries are our strongest areas.
It is now time for our economic planners to learn lessons from the Pandemic and that is to develop an economy built on local manpower and resources because this is the more resilient and inclusive economy.
Food production, processing, distributing and marketing could be our greatest strength as a nation.
Of course, not everybody could be a farmer or a fisherman but there will be opportunities in the processing, in the logistics and in the marketing.
This will be an economy that will be built from the grounds then up.
Let us grow our own Christmas tree by planting it in our fertile soil, nurture it with the cool water from our springs and allow it to bear fruits rather than buy an imported plastic Pine Tree with glistening plastic balls made in China.
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
#LetsMakeUpOurMinds!
#TargetTopFoodProducer!
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