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This
question is being asked in the wake of the unrelenting
(until some days back anyway) barrage of negative
reports on two of the most-driven, results-oriented and,
yes, misunderstood officials of the Arroyo
administration for weeks on end now—Agriculture
Secretary Art Yap and BIR Commissioner Jojo Buñag.
The
youthful agriculture chief who just returned from a
successful trip to the People’s Republic of
China
(PROC) with President Arroyo has been put to task by the
group Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME) for allegedly
playing “land broker” to Chinese corporations bent on
venturing into the undeveloped and, might I add,
investment-challenged agricultural sector.
Taking
off from similar criticisms from unknown sectors
earlier, KME insists that Yap and, by implication, this
administration is: a) violating the constitutional
provision on foreign ownership of land by letting the
Chinese companies enter into partnerships to develop
these farming areas and b) threatening the country’s
food security by such an unwarranted act.
Of
course, the KME concerns, if we may call them such, are
completely baseless and unavailing. But they make good
copy for those who have an ax or, should we say, axes to
grind against
Yap and this administration.
If only
KME’s manifesto writers bothered to scrutinize the
agreements which the Chinese corporations entered into,
thus far, there is nothing in these documents which
cedes landownership to the latter. They are merely
leasing these lands on a long-term, I believe 25 years
renewable, some even less at 10-years basis, from
legitimate private owners and government.
Most if
not all of these lands are undercultivated, or if they
are being farmed right now, have not been used to the
fullest. What Secretary Yap and his colleagues have
done, or are poised to do, is putting these lands up for
full and responsible cultivation as a means not only to
put these to good use, but as a bait, if we may call it
such, to get the Chinese groups to put in more money
into food and agricultural processing.
It is
the latter effort, aside from the promised monies, which
has been wanting in most contracts. Even the so-called
most enlightened US, EU or Australian investors in
agriculture have never ceded.
Besides
the respectable land lease, other features of these
contracts are a definite timetable for investing the
promised monies, transfer of technology and retention of
at least 30 percent of the production for sale locally.
Unless
one is from another planet or simply a native naysayer,
by any kind of reckoning, this effort will not only
enhance our food security but generate more jobs,
enhance rural development and, of course, generate
much-needed foreign exchange as a good part of the
production is exported to China.
If the
critics are not yet aware, China has become and
continues to become a glutton for agricultural products,
mopping up all kinds of items from all sources
worldwide, including our neighbors in Asean.
In the
process, the Chinese have also entered into similar
contracts and have been lavished with praises and
incentives in return. As a senior Thai minister noted
upon learning of the attacks on
Yap: the Chinese investors can always divert their investments
to their country if they are unwelcome in these parts
Ooops. .
. We are talking of an estimated P240 billion in
investments indicated in the 19 agreements which have
been signed through Yap’s initiative ever since he and
his boss, President Arroyo, decided to look East at
China rather than be bamboozled by the extravagant but
unavailing claims and promises of the country’s
traditional sources of foreign agricultural investments
who have so monopolized and depressed the market to suit
their own ends.
If the
critics are being honest with themselves, and with the
country, they will have to acknowledge the fact that
investments in the higher stages of agriculture have
stagnated and that, instead of food security, we have
been importing more and more of our basic needs rather
than producing them.
So, is
it any wonder Yap is getting this kind of vitriol from,
of all sectors, KME, which is supposed to be one of the
more enlightened advocates of the “Filipino First”
policy?
It
should go back to the contracts and assist in ensuring
that the same stay as close to the avowed goals of
enlightened investments, creative partnering and food
sufficiency, among others, which are the objects of
these arrangements anyway.
The case
of Commissioner Buñag is eerily similar to that of
Yap—an out-and-out ouster initiative by powerful forces
disguised as a so-called performance check.
The
story begins with an unrealistic revenue collection
target imposed by the DBCC and relayed to Buñag by
Finance Secretary Gary Teves, who is his classmate at
the Ateneo.
Of
course, Teves and Buñag were both aware that the target
was issued to justify the trillion-plus peso 2008 budget
and that, in time, the same will probably be adjusted
depending on the country’s economic situation and other
factors.
The
trouble began when some sectors started badgering Buñag
after the first quarter to abide by his commitment using
the shortfall within the three months period as the
battering rod.
Whether
Teves was aware of the sly tactics of these critics or
not has yet to be determined. Suffice it to say that the
good secretary was suddenly tongue-tied about the whole
issue.
Rather
than assisting Buñag explain the whole situation as he
did last year when the same issue of revenue shortfall
was brought up, Teves was nowhere to be found. Which
was, of course, strange.
Being
Buñag’s immediate boss he could have come in and showed
the critics the correct picture. He could have, at the
very least, told them to take pause explaining in the
process that the goal was just that, a goal, and
something which can be or ought to be reviewed as the
year gets going.
He could
have also noted that a similar attack was launched
against Buñag last year to no avail since the BIR
managed to overshoot the target by P30 billion, more or
less.
Teves’s
silence was palpable, especially when Malacañang came
out with that highly irregular, if not illegal,
Executive Order 625 reorganizing certain sectors of the
BIR without as much as advising him and Buñag about it.
But that
is all under the bridge now as Buñag has been given a
reprieve by no less than President Arroyo after she
recalled the order and asked Buñag to step up his
revenue drive.
But the
question remains: who is afraid of Secretary Yap and
Commissioner Buñag? Or, should it be, whose toes have
they stepped on? Abangan. |
