Almonte analysis and agriculture

Is the analysis of our national situation by Secretary Jose Almonte, former President Fidel Ramos’ national security adviser and recipient of the country’s highest award (the Ancient Order of Sikatuna), valid?

If so, how does this apply to agricultural development?

Main points

We have reviewed two of Almonte’s speeches: one delivered last July 21 at the FVR-RPDEV Lecture Series; and the other delivered last August 31 at the Foundation for Economic Freedom’s monthly meeting.

Almonte makes the following key points:

Three global institutions have placed Philippine competitiveness at the lowest one-third or one-fourth relative to all the rated countries.

In the Failed State Index, the Philippines was rated only 4.2 units away from Failed State Status at 90 to 100. In terms of corruption, the Philippines was listed at the bottom by the 2008 Worldwide Governance Indicators and the 2010 Transparency International Corruption Index.

These findings “have scattered some nine million of our people all over the globe—where as managers, engineers, teachers, doctors, nurses and information technologists, they are regarded as among the best in their class. This tells us that our country’s strengths are our people’s strengths. But our country’s weaknesses are our government’s weaknesses.”

A World Bank view is that “we have a country… where the State is not effectively in the hands of the people… where State policies and their implementation do not serve the common good but special interests.”

Almonte’s conclusion: “We must work together to earn the world’s respect. We must work to deserve our honor, our dignity, our freedom. We must live our core values. We must transfer the power of the few over the State to our people.”

Agricultural governance

Are Almonte’s points valid? Yes. Do they apply to agricultural governance? Absolutely.

During the past administration, the agricultural sector showed a lack of global competitiveness, rampant smuggling, massive corruption, and strong opposition to private sector participation in governance. The last is highlighted by the cancellation of meetings of the government-private sector National Agriculture and Fisheries Council (NAFC).

Though the NAFC committees met, the NAFC itself cancelled all meetings when an Alyansa Agrikultura-NAFC member asked for the monitoring of the Department of Agriculture (DA) budget, which is mandated by law.

This lack of transparency is the major reason why corruption flourished.

Has there been a change under the new administration? Yes. Is it adequate? We believe not.

Though the NAFC committees continue to meet, the NAFC itself has only met once in the last year and two months, instead of every three months as stipulated under a previous DA order.

The NAFC budget committee finally had its first meeting four months and 13 days after its creation. And this was only after the DA 2012 budget proposal had already been submitted to Congress.

To Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala’s credit, he has shown his willingness to listen. But some parts of the DA bureaucracy are not supporting this direction.

AF 2025

Alcala showed this same willingness when he convened with congressional agriculture committee chairs Sen. Francis Pangilinan and Rep. Mark Mendoza, as well as private sector leaders, the Agriculture and Fisheries 2025 (AF 2025) Summit last February 10-11.

AF 2025 has done well in creating a follow-up mechanism to monitor progress and improve agricultural governance.

However, only the Livestock, Poultry and Feeds subsector group coordinated by Assistant Secretary Dave Catbagan has been rated highly. The other AF 2025 subsector groups have to catch up because of reasons such as lack of a DA focal person, low-level DA representation, sporadic meetings, and lack of follow-up.

Conclusion

In the case of agricultural governance, Almonte’s recommendation that “we must work together” and that “we must transfer the power of the few over the State to our people” can best be implemented through NAFC and AF 2025.

The next NAFC meeting has yet to be scheduled. Thankfully, the next AF 2025 preparatory meeting will be held on September 5. We recommend that the DA bureaucracy give full support for these meetings.

This way, both Almonte’s and Alcala’s direction of private sector participation in governance can be meaningfully achieved.

(The author is chairman of Agriwatch, former secretary for presidential flagship programs and projects, and former undersecretary for agriculture, and trade and industry. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail [email protected] or telefax (02) 8522112.)