THE name Amable M. Aguiluz V never fails to ring a bell when you mention it locally.

For one thing, he is the country’s ambassador to the Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC, which means the administration trusts him implicitly.

But he first became widely known in the country as the man behind the phenomenal proliferation of the AMA Computer College in key cities in the Philippines. (That’s the low-cost info-tech school that, you might say, was like a cheap burger patty that the masses went for despite being short on beef and long on extender. But that’s perhaps why the AMA Computer College did not quite make the grade when it aspired to acquire university status.)

Ambassador Aguiluz, it will be recalled, was also the target of brickbats only a few years ago when a property company owned by his family started building a multistory building right outside the gated Wack Wack country club and subdivision (facing Megamall) in Mandaluyong. Irate Wack Wack residents sued the Aguiluz-owned company for alleged violation of the city’s zoning regulations and building code.

And now, Dr. Amable Aguiluz V (there are about 34 Amable Aguiluzes according to members of the family) seems to be involved in another sizzling controversy—this one in connection with his diplomatic assignment in the Middle East.

Despite denials to the contrary from the AMA Group, Aguiluz is said to have committed the Philippines to a $300-million land-lease deal for the production of food for Bahrain.

Alert farm groups have sounded the alarms, specifically against a starting deal for $50 million covering 10,000 hectares in Davao del Norte. The contract has been reportedly signed between the AMA Group Holdings, Philippines and Bahrain’s Nadir and Ibrahim Sons of Hassan Group.

The news about this deal came out in the Gulf Daily News and the Trade Arabia Business News Information on January 19, 2012. The news item was also posted in the Sudan Commerce News web site on the same day.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said it was unbelievable that Aguiluz would compromise his role as envoy to the GCC through the $300-million land-lease deal. He shouldn’t be promoting his private business interest while performing his role as ambassador.

Yet, KMP Secretary-General Danilo Ramos said Aguiluz V had been working on the deal for nearly two years now. He said, however, that he wasn’t quite sure of the status or exact nature of the contract that has reportedly been “signed, sealed and delivered.”

The KMP and other farmers’ organizations can only go by the news accounts published in Arab publications and web sites. Without these news accounts, he said, “we’d be completely in the dark about this planned wholesale sellout of farmlands in Mindanao.”

“The signing of the $50-million deal is apparently part of the larger package launched in 2010,” he said.

The AMA Group Holdings, however, has denied that such a contract between Bahrain and the Aguiluz-owned company is about to be enforced. Enrico Mira, legal counsel, said: “The joint-venture project between Bahrain and the AMA Group to develop corporate farming in Mindanao to supply rice, bananas and other needs of Bahrain did not push through for lack of suitable land.”

Mira’s denial drew this retort from KMP’s Ramos: “He should tell that to the Arabs. His denial only reinforces our demand for a congressional investigation on the planned sellout of the country’s agricultural land, plus the involvement and possible conflict of interest on the part of Ambassador Amable Aguiluz.”

Aguiluz is known among peasant and farmers’ groups to be behind the joint venture called “RP Harvest” with Bahrain’s Hassan Group as partners, to cultivate bananas, rice and other food crops on 10,000 hectares in Davao del Norte.

“This so-called joint venture smacks like land-grabbing and conflict of interest on the part of President Aquino’s political lieutenant in the Gulf,” Ramos said.

He said Aguiluz, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Reform have a lot of explaining to do on this issue.

“Obviously, this sellout to foreigners is being done by the political ambassadors with the blessings of Malacañang,” he said.

The so-called joint venture, he added, would displace thousands of farmers and fuel further agrarian unrest in the Davao region.

What Ambassador Aguiluz is apparently trying to do is to succeed where former Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap (now a congressman representing Bohol) failed before.

Aguiluz is probably entertaining the notion that Filipinos should be open to ideas that would make the country more economically competitive. I’m just guessing of course (and assuming Aguiluz is capable of deep thought), but he probably believes it is high time Filipinos adopted a global outlook and try out new schemes such as this one.

Aguiluz may have forgotten that Filipinos have a tendency to be fiercely possessive when the land or territory they occupy is at issue. This was shown only a few years back when Yap, as agriculture adviser to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, broached a plan similar to this one being pushed by Aguiluz.

Yap’s plan—and he sounded quite proud and pleased with it when he made the announcement—was for the government to open up some 2.4 hectares of arable land for joint ventures that would convert these areas into modern food farms.

Unlike Aguiluz’s scheme, however, Yap’s prospective joint-venture partners were Chinese corporations. Yap wanted the government to allow the Chinese joint-venture partners to run those food farms so that the government could earn hefty revenues from the deal.

The only downside to that plan was that all the food to be produced would be shipped to China, and local farmers would be hired as farmworkers.

Yap saw how negatively the entire countryside reacted to his cockamamie plan. In less than two weeks, the proposed scheme was blasted to smithereens.

To a man, all organizations having anything to do with agriculture or land reform, registered their strong objection to what was described as a “sellout to the Chinese.”

The Fair Trade Alliance savaged Yap the most for allegedly being anti-Filipino. Other farmer groups even wanted to lynch him.

It did not take long before Yap dropped the idea like a hot potato.

In Aguiluz’s case, however, the public would be curious to know to what extent he has committed Davao del Norte’s farmlands to Bahrain’s food-security needs.

Will his scheme be, indeed, part of the administration’s Public-Private Partnership Program as claimed by his people? Remember, the Aquino administration trusts him implicitly.

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