Conclusion
AS President Duterte speaks on Monday for his second State of the Nation Address (Sona), importers, traders and businessmen in general expect “meatier” government support would flow from his mouth.
And he will, if Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez is to be believed. In a briefing with reporters on Wednesday, the chief of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said the Commander in Chief would emphasize micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as key to the country’s further development, if not for the Philippines’s socioeconomic growth in the past year.
“The MSME development efforts are close to his [Duterte’s] heart,” Lopez said, adding that there are currently 514 Negosyo (business) centers.Entrepreneurs-clients in these centers are now at 800,000, he said.
In one year of the administration, we’ve helped 520,000, Lopez added.
The DTI chief also expects the Chief Executive to cite the Pondo para sa Pagbabago at
Pag-asenso (P3, or fund for change and development) Program.
The P3 is a P1-billion financing scheme that aims to give MSMEs better access to finance and to reduce their cost of borrowing. The fund will also give priority to the country’s 30 poorest provinces. This is intended to replace the “5-6” money-lending system.
Given his push on inclusive growth, I believe the President will cite this program in his Sona, according to Lopez.
Protecting trade
THE same support is expected by Meat Importers and Traders Association President Jesus C. Cham to be cited in Duterte’s Sona. However, Cham said the nature of the support should be in terms of policy.
Cham cited, for one, opening the local market to foreign imports. He believes doing so would lead to a decrease in the price of meat at the retail level.
“We hope the government will see that food cost in the Philippines is high, and this is due to a misguided protectionist policy,” Cham told the BusinessMirror.
“Government has decided to liberalize rice importation, and this is a step in the right direction,” he said. “Similarly, the importation of meat and meat products should be liberalized.”
Cham added the tariff slapped by government on meat imports pushes up the landed cost of commodities in the local market. This cost is then passed on to Filipino consumers, making meat expensive and particularly inaccessible to lower-income families, he said.
“High import duty rates push up the cost of imports, even as local producers are not able to supply meat at affordable prices,” Cham said. “This [situation] especially affects the bottom half of the population who are not able to consume good quality protein.”
Reforms, changes
ACCORDING to Cham the reforms initiated by the Department of Agriculture (DA) in securing import permits or sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) import clearance has disrupted the flow of trade in the market.
“[The] DA has not made it easier to import but has made it harder,” he explained. “Manual processing takes longer to issue ‘import permits’, which are presented in the guise of SPS clearances.”
ProPork President Edwin G. Chen believes the air should be cleared between traders and government. One way to achieve this, he said, is the implementation of a comprehensive livestock program to promote deeper collaboration between the government and the private sector.
“More collaborative interaction between the industry and the Department of Agriculture [is needed],” Chen told the BusinessMirror. “I find the interaction greatly reduced than the previous administration.”
Chen believes the government should also allocate budget for programs supporting the industry.
“Livestock and poultry is the second-biggest contributor to the Philippine agriculture,” Chen added. “Unfortunately it has the smallest budget from the DA.”
Small farmers
ARZE Glipo, executive director of the Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF), believes government “support should be in the direction of self-sufficiency”, especially in garlic and onion.
“The DA is now encouraging farmers to plant garlic and onion not only in the North but also in the Mindanao region, so why not? It’s a good idea so we won’t be manipulated by middlemen and the cartel,” Glipo told the BusinessMirror. “At the same time, we provide employment to people in the rural areas.” The government should allocate more funding to programs directed in helping the country’s small-scale farmers increase their income, she added.
“The bias of the government’s policy should be toward small farmers,” Glipo said. “If you look at the statistics, most of the farmers in the world are small-scale ones—so the government’s support should go there.”
Glipo believes programs that would help farmers improve their income would include distribution of better planting materials, resilient irrigation systems and easier access to financing or credit.
The DA could also look into improving the implementation of the National Organic Agriculture Program, according to the IRDF official.
Glipo hopes the government will implement an integrated program that would tie up the livestock sector with organic farming.
“This should be done in an integrated manner because one of the problems faced by farmers is the source of organic matter,” she said. “For example they have already been trained to do organic farming but they do not have any source for manure.”
Glipo said an integrated program would allow organic farmers to tap the supply of manure from owners of cattle and poultry farms.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes