LOREN SLAMS DA ON PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

Sen. Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate committee on food and agriculture, yesterday slammed the Department of Agriculture for failing to "fully and properly" implement the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997 (AFMA).

In a Senate privilege speech, Loren said that the failure of the DA to fully and properly implement AFMA with a budget of P35.7 billion is one of the causes for the growing incidence of hunger in the Philippines, affecting 20 percent of the population or at least 3.7 million families.

"The AFMA provides us with a blueprint on where agriculture should go and how it is to develop. It does in fact provide a means to our desired end of a hunger-free nation. Implementing this law gives us the capacity to provide the stability of intervention programs for increased agricultural production despite changes in administrations as well as department leadership."

Loren began her speech by dramatically recounting how an old man was found dead, apparently from hunger, inside an abandoned bus in Fairview, Quezon City, last Friday, August 14.

"That man is the human face to the cold but grim statistics of hunger in our country," Loren bewailed.

A survey conducted last June by the Social Weather Station for the second quarter of 2009 found an unprecedented rise in the number of families that experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months. The previous quarter's 15.5% or 2.9 million families that experienced hunger swelled to 20.3% or an estimated 3.7 million families, Loren related.

While the most number of hungry families is in Mindanao affecting an estimated 1.3 million families, in Metro Manila there are 50,000 families who have experienced hunger, 775,000 in the Visayas and 1.2 million in Luzon, Loren pointed out.

She said that the primary cause of hunger is inadequate food production, resulting in the need to import both rice and corn, thus increasing prices beyond the reach of the poor.

"That Filipinos actually die of hunger should serve as a reality check to all of us. Claims that Filipinos are better off now fly in the face of worsening hunger statistics. But these statistics also motivates this servant of the Filipinos to once and for all, deal a serious, if not fatal, blow to hunger, Loren declared.

Despite government claims that agricultural production has been growing by 3.92% in 2008 and would grow by 1.53% for the last semester of 2009, Loren said that hunger continues to grow among a larger sector of the population.

"Further increasing food production as a means to reduce food prices is still the best way to reduce hunger," Loren said. "Our average rice productivity of about 3 tons per hectare is way below the potential of our farmlands. The productivity in corn, which is the staple food of many in the countryside, at 3 tons per hectare also denotes a low production of this crop."

She pointed out that rice and corn production could be accelerated with the proper implementation of AFMA. However, she noted a lack of coordination among government agencies in implementing AFMA. "Our failure to free many of our people from poverty and hunger stems in large part from our failure to fully and seriously implement AFMA goals."

Last June 3, 2009, the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization, or COCAFM, called the AFMA departments. "I found out--through the Department's own admission and the Department of Budget and Management's observation--that there have been no serious efforts to turn into reality the intention of AFMA," Loren informed the Senate.

She considered "unacceptable" the explanation of Secretary Arthur Yap that it was due to "turfing" issues. "A concerned leader of the country should call on the heads of these departments and order them to do what should be done. Apparently, even the top levels of the leadership in the executive are not appraised by the cabinet on how AFMA is being implemented."

Loren said that some AFMA programs, like the Basic Needs program, did not progress after its conceptualization. The DA said it was because AFMA was not actually funded since its passage.

Loren urged the DA "to put its act together" and provide continuity of programs in order to accomplish the objectives and purposes of AFMA and other projects intended to increase agricultural productivity. She also asked Secretary Yap to recast the 2009 and the 2010 budgets of DFA so as to conform with the objectives of AFMA.

The agricultural state universities and colleges should also be enlisted in pursuing the objectives of AFMA, as well as farmers cooperatives and associations, said Loren. "I shall do what I have to do in my committee for the hungry families in Mindanao, in Metro Manila, in the rest of Luzon, and in the Visayas," she vowed.