Agri chief slams economic managers

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s economic managers should rethink their stand on the farm industry and consider giving it greater attention instead of blaming it for the growth slowdown in the second quarter, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said yesterday.

Piñol was reacting to Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia’s statement partly blaming the sector for the slower growth in the second quarter, at six percent, from the previous quarter’s 6.6 percent.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), headed by Pernia, has noted the almost stagnant output of the agriculture sector.

“In a recent meeting with Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the economic managers again restated the position that agriculture and rice production are not among the priorities of government,” Piñol said.

“However, as inflation hit 5.7 percent and economic growth slowed to six percent, all eyes were focused on agriculture, blaming it for the lackluster growth of 0.58 percent in the first two quarters of 2018,” he added.

But the observation of the economic managers, he said, is one of the “best arguments” for giving agriculture a fair share of attention and budget.

“The Philippines, no matter what they say, is still and will always be an agricultural country where the lifeblood of the economy is agricultural production,” Piñol said.

“The positive economic numbers derived from the jobs generated by the Build, Build, Build program and other infrastructure programs are temporary,” he added.

To improve the sector, Piñol emphasized that the Build, Build, Build program should be extended to the arterial and farm-to-market roads (FMR) leading to food production areas.

“While government has poured hundreds of billions of pesos widening the highways and destroying still usable highways to re-pave these with concrete, the FMR program has received a pittance – P9.5 billion good only for 900 kilometers,” he said.

The DA said the current backlog in the FMR program is 13,000 kilometers and it would take about 12 years to complete the work given the current pace of construction.

Piñol also called for a review of the cash dole-out programs, which he said should instead be spent for more productive livelihood assistance, especially food production.