President-cum-Agri chief executive

Taking the bull by the horn idiomatically speaking could best describe how to address the labyrinthine problems besetting Philippine agriculture. Cattle raising, by the way, is a subsector of the livestock industry in our country’s agriculture. Levity aside, incoming President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) has obviously already braced self when he assumes in concurrent capacity as the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA) effective this June 30.

It is on the same day that President Rodrigo Duterte steps down from office to give way to his duly elected successor at Malacañang Palace. In his press conference last week, PBBM announced he would fill in the Agriculture portfolio initially from day one of his administration.

PBBM, however, did not fix a timetable for how long he will stay on as President-cum-Agriculture Secretary.

Before his administration could even begin, however, rabid critics already questioned via social media PBBM’s motives in taking over the DA post. In particular, fears were foisted on how the P75-billion coco levy fund would be handled by the incoming President-cum-Agriculture Secretary. They based their suspicions to the fact that the Agriculture Secretary sits as ex officio chairman of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), an agency attached to the DA.

Had they read first Republic Act (RA) 115421, or the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund (CFITF) Act signed into law by President Duterte in February 2019, they would find their suspicions were unfounded. For sure, PBBM would know by now from his eldest sister—Senator Imee Marcos, one of the co-authors of RA 115421. This law mandated an inter-agency body to oversee the coco levy trust funds generated from taxes collected from coconut farmers decades ago.

Section 10 of this law created the Trust Fund Management Committee composed of the Department of Finance (DOF); the Department of Budget and Management (DBM); and the Department of Justice (DOJ). It was tasked in setting the investment strategy of the CFITF. Section 11 of the same law designated the DOF as the trust fund manager. Both the DA and the PCA were not even included.

This law mandated that the use of the trust fund will be based on a coconut industry development plan (CFIDP) prepared by the PCA in consultation with coconut farmers and their organizations, industry associations, civil society groups and government agencies. It was only last June 9 when President Duterte issued Executive Order (EO) 172 to implement the CFIDP.

Thus, these previously sequestered coco levy funds would follow the RA 11542 timetable mandating the release of these trust funds in tranches from the Treasury Bureau: P10 billion in the first year; P10 billion in the second year; P15 billion in the third year; P15 billion in the fourth year; and P25 billion in the fifth year. The trust fund will be maintained for 50 years.

Incidentally, the PCA was previously among the attached agencies that were carved out of the DA by the late president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, or PNoy for short. The PCA, along with National Food Authority (NFA); the National Irrigation Authority (NIA); the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI) were all transferred to the new office created for PNoy’s political ally—Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan—in May 2014. Pangilinan, who was then at the end of his second term at the Senate, was appointed as Presidential Adviser on Food Security and Agriculture Modernization (PAFSAM).

When President Duterte took over the helm of government in June 2016, all these agencies, except FTI, were restored one after the other back to the DA. Outgoing DA Secretary William Dar disclosed during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay virtual news forum last Wednesday that the NIA was transferred back to the DA just two months ago.

President Duterte appointed Dar to his Cabinet in August 2019. Taking over the helm of the DA in the second half of the Duterte administration, Dar groused about a lot of “political accommodations” during the last three years he had to deal within the DA bureaucracy he inherited. Dar further grumbled the DA has become the punching bag over the controversial Rice Tariffication Law (RTL).

Offhand, Dar admitted some sums of the annual P10 billion of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) were diverted as “ayuda” pay out to farmers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The RTL mandated that the annual tariff revenues from rice imports in excess of P10 billion shall be distributed as cash assistance to small rice farmers tilling two hectares of land and below until 2024.

Dar reminded lawmakers that RA 11598, or the RTL, was signed into law on Feb.14, 2019 replacing the rice import quantitative restrictions with tariffs in a six-year period. The same law provided for a congressional review of the RTL by the middle of its implementing period. The timing of this review, he noted, falls in the laps of the incoming 19th Congress.

Meanwhile, Dar called out the attention of local government units (LGUs), which by operations of the Local Government Code among other things devolved as many as 17,000 DA personnel as agricultural extension officers down to the LGUs. Moreover, Dar pointed out, it also authorized LGUs to procure their own rice buffer stock.

Starting this year, he noted, the LGUs will have so much funds in their hands with the implementation of the 2018 “Mandanas ruling” of the Supreme Court (SC) on the internal revenue allotments (IRA). The IRAs of the LGUs will increase by as much as P959 billion this year and much more when fully implemented by 2024.

“It’s common sense for LGUs lacking rice to do their own buffer stocking and invest some of their IRAs for 60-day buffer stock,” Dar pointed out.

Having served for three terms as Ilocos Norte Governor and once as Senator, common sense is the least of worries for PBBM. The President-cum-Agriculture Secretary chief executive could whip the LGUs to the directions he wants to lead the country within the next six years of his administration.