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PRESIDENT Arroyo can still manage escalating oil and
food prices with the present presidential authority and
has no immediate plans to seek emergency powers,
according to chief presidential counsel Sergio Apostol.
He was responding to expressed sentiments of lawmakers
opposed to such added powers.
“The
administration can still manage. That is why we can
subsidize power, oil and food. There is really no need
yet to declare a state of emergency,” said Apostol.
Be that
as it may, the government said it is thinking of
long-term solutions and urged international donors and
financial institutions to increase funding for
agricultural productivity research.
At the
United Nations, Ambassador Hilario Davide Jr. made the
call at the recent special meeting on the global food
crisis convened by the Economic and Social Council of
the UN, specifically naming the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna, as a
good place to start pouring in the international
community’s funding for such efforts.
“The
call of the hour includes the immediate
positive/affirmative response from all concerned, such
as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the
International Fund for Agricultural Development, and
development partners to the most basic need of the IRRI—funds
for research,” said Davide in a statement issued over
the weekend.
The
reported but unconfirmed declaration of a state of
emergency was seen as having been fueled by the
institution last week of a National Food and Energy
Council (NFEC) that the President cochairs with the
director general of the National Economic and
Development Authority (Neda).
Apostol
said the setting up of the NFEC should not be
misconstrued as an “intention” to declare a state of
emergency and that it was a panel that will only advise
the President on the present crisis.
It will
also develop and oversee implementation of medium-term
policies and programs designed to ensure the supply of
affordable food and power in the country in the next
five years.
On the
IRRI, Davide said, “If money is available for research,
IRRI can accomplish the task in four to seven years and
save millions of people from hunger, from death.”
He
pointed out that IRRI is the world’s main repository of
rice seeds, as well as genetic and other information
about rice. “The research of the IRRI on rice, the crop
that feeds nearly half of the peoples of the world, has
been, unfortunately, tremendously slowed down because of
cuts in funds for agricultural research.”
Davide
urged the UN “to do something right now, and not later,
to influence and muster a collective action to
courageously and decisively meet the crisis with
unparalleled political will—a collective action that is
powered by the spirit and virtues of coherence,
cooperation and coordination.”
IRRI
research, he said, is crucial to the solution of the
rice problem because of the floods and droughts ravaging
Asia and Africa, as well as the spread of pests like the
brown plant hopper that multiply fast by the billions,
chewing through rice paddies.
He
reported that
China,
the world’s largest rice producer, has announced it was
struggling to control the rapid spread of these insects,
which could destroy as much as 20 percent of a harvest.
Davide
also said that budgetary cuts have been preventing IRRI
from moving further into developing 14 new types of rice
varieties with varying qualities suitable for planting
in different world areas. |
