Yesterday, I received calls from the media asking for my reaction to the statement issued by the new Agriculture Secretary William Dar blaming me for the outbreak of the African Swine Fever in Luzon saying it started appearing in May of 2019 but the DA under me did nothing.
When I checked the news, one of his advisers claimed that we kept the information from the stakeholders thus resulting in the spread of the swine disease.
To say that I was disappointed by the accusation of a fellow Cabinet official under this administration is an understatement.
Actually, I could not believe that the touted agriculture expert would go to the extent of engaging in a blame game to rationalise the apparent difficulty he encounters in addressing a crisis situation.
What good would a blame game do? Will it solve the problem?
In response to the claim that ASF was already present in the country as early as May, let me make these categorical answers:
1. The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) had not recorded or reported to the OIE or World Animal Health Organisation any incidence of ASF outbreak in May, June or July. It was only in August when the first case was reported in Rizal and specimens were sent to the OIE for validation.
2. The claim that the ASF was already in the country as early as May is a statement which reeks with an utter lack of knowledge of the characteristic of the virus which cause the ASF. I am not a veterinarian but I ask experts before I issue statements. Experts say that the incubation period of the ASF virus is between 4 to 19 days and it could decimate a hog population in 48 to 72 hours. This means that if indeed the ASF was already present in the country in May, by August when Sec. Dar took over the DA, it should have already wiped out the hog population among backyard farmers in Central Luzon.
3. The DA-BAI Quarantine Teams which worked 24/7 along with K9 Units at the Manila International Airport indeed made several interceptions of pork products at the airport which were suspected to be contaminated with ASF. Results of the tests are available at BAI. Please take note that these are interceptions of pork products, not ASF infections, a case similar to that reported in Taiwan where ASF infected meat was also confiscated at the airport.
4. The reported outbreak of ASF was in areas near the dumpsites where apparently food wastes are being gathered and sold to backyard hog raisers for swill feeding, a practice which was specifically identified as one of the “Don’ts” in the BABES campaign of DA-BAI.
Assuming that indeed the ASF virus entered the country during the transition period which unfortunately manifested after Sec. Dar’s take over of the DA on Aug. 6, engaging in a blame game will not do us any good.
Sec. Dar has long lobbied to be appointed Secretary of Agriculture. In fact, even before President Rody Duterte could assume the Presidency, I saw him in Davao City apparently looking for connections to the then President-elect.
As a touted Agriculture Expert, Sec. Dar should have prepared for the problems he expected to encounter before he assumed office following my resignation as DA Secretary on June 26.
Among those are the effects of the Rice Liberalisation Law and of course, the threat of the ASF.
A good crisis manager should have already prepared a plan of action to handle the expected challenges but Sec. Dar was more concerned with identifying “Piñol’s People” and dressing down officials in public.
Let me just remind them that some of those officials are Presidential Appointees who campaigned hard for the victory of President Duterte at the time Sec. Dar and his adviser, Rosendo So, were campaigning for another Presidential Candidate.
I do not know Sec. Dar’s management style but I never embarrass my fellow workers in public. That is not my style.
During our turn-over ceremony at the BSWM Office in Quezon City, I promised to help and support Sec. Dar saying that he “should not and could not fail.”
I am still making that same commitment today even if he has offended me with his irresponsible accusations and childish actuations of looking for people to blame in the face of crisis.
Let me repeat what I said during the turn-over: “You cannot and should not fail as Secretary of Agriculture in the last two years of the Duterte Presidency because it could mean hard and difficult life for our farmers, fishermen and agricultural stakeholders of this country.”
Enough of the blame game. Let us work together in addressing the problems.
I hope you will take this piece of advice knowing that you are the Agriculture Expert and I am just a Farm Boy.
(Photo of the turn over between me and Sec. Dar was taken on Aug. 13, 2019, almost two months after I submitted my courtesy resignation as DA Secretary to President Duterte.)
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