Where are our farmers?

Ben Contreras

AS I listened to Sen. Bobong Marcos’s privilege speech, I was reminded of his father’s speeches that catapulted the latter to the highest position of the land. What happened after, people our age know too well. Similarly, the young Marcos’s speech brought ripples of fear and anxiety to what may come in the future.

If I were born during the post-Marcos years, I would have seen it as a speech of a genuine nationalist the way I also admire Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano who stood his ground amid the jeering and sneering against his stance.

Indeed, why the impose “arbitrary deadlines”? It is not just about our Muslim brothers, it is all about us, Filipinos.

If the government is willing to give billions of pesos for the BBL, why not invest that money on infrastructure development like the Mindanao Railway System, more roads and bridges, more investments, more schools, more jobs, etc. In short, do a John Perrine. If the MILF would be averse to this, then their sincerity about peace is truly in question.

Another Aquino-Marcos rivalry looms.

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Former Sen. Kiko Pangilingan, now the presidential assistant for food security and agricultural modernization, seems to know it all. How we and society look down on farmers can be seen by the study that the average age of existing farmers is at 57. Where are the young ones?

“Mababa ang tingin nila sa sarili. Mataas ang tingin nila sa doktor at abogado. Pero kailan mo kailangan ang doktor at abogado. Kailan mo kailangan ang magsasaka?” Pangilingan said.

Indeed, we need the farmers as much as we need air. They produce the food we eat. Thus, farmers should be supported by the government.

How ironic that we have the greatest acreage for farming but we lag behind other Asian countries in food production. Where have all our farmers gone?

At Moscat, you’ll find students who belong to rich families. Why? It’s probably because their families own farms and livestock, and they want to make use of their agricultural properties. They want

their children to venture into agriculture, including dairy.

Many landed families in the area lease out their lands for pineapple or banana plantations when they could have done it themselves if government has been willing to help. After leasing their lands, they ended up working for the companies, sold their land eventually, and made the new owners very rich when it could have been them.

Moscat produces good graduates but other countries that readily offer jobs with good and decent salaries, are the ones benefitting. Moscat aims to change that, and it is currently on a drive to attract enrollees.

We’re losing our arable lands to non-food agriculture by the thousands of hectares. If Mr. Pangilingan is concerned with our food security, he should ask our government to discourage converting our farm lands into oil palm plantations.