Bothered and bewildered

Last Thursday, we wrote about forthcoming bad news that could negate the temporary relief the Philippine Statistics Authority report saying inflation was down by a percentage point compared to February’s 8.6 percent.

And we said the good news about inflation is just the calm before the storm.

The president had a briefing last week from his agriculture managers, and, thereafter, he was quoted as saying that the NFA should increase its buffer stock which was “too low.”

In our Thursday article, we said that “because supplying Kadiwa has become NFA’s sole concern these days, just to prop up the chimera of 20 peso per kilo rice, we hardly have any reserves in the hands of the State/”

Before the president, the NFA reported they should have only some 500,000 bags of rice by the start of the lean months (July to September). That is equivalent to 25,000 metric tons, or some three-fourths of one day in the nation’s consumption.

But how can the NFA buy from the farmers now?

First, it may be too late in the day. The harvest has started, and the private traders shall have contracted their ex-farm purchases.

Second, the DA spokesperson admits that palay prices are already at 23 per kilo, so how can NFA compete?

So the NFA suggested government imports 330,000 metric tons for buffer stocking, whether through the OP itself or another designated agency, because the Rice Tarrification Law expressly prohibits the NFA to import rice.

But as we wrote in last Thursday’s column, tradeable surplus of rice for export is only some 6.6 percent of total world supply.

Now we announce that we will need to import on a government-to-government basis, RTL notwithstanding.

How do you think the supply side, which is basically Vietnam, Thailand and India react? Why, increase their prices further, naturally!

One is rightly bothered at these announcements.

On the one hand, DA assures us that we are producing enough rice for our staple needs.

It tells us that the country’s total supply is at 16.98 million metric tons (MMT), which is sufficient to cover this year’s demand estimated at 15.29 MMT.

So the left hand tells us we have enough production, while the right hand says we need to stock up more.

History of DA-NFA relations shows that NFA is often right when it comes to reading the supply-demand numbers.

So, I stand by my prediction in last Thursday’s article that rice prices which have already begun to act up, will go up further in the second half of the year, and let us pray no strong typhoons will visit us come September and October.

Amang just hit Bicol. Wait till the Os and Ps in our typhoon lexicon arrive.

Former USec Fermin Adriano in a Manila Times article last week noted that 57 percent of the total inflation figures in March was attributed to food.

Food inflation hits the poor (and the increasingly diminished middle class) most, as study after study has stated, as some 70 percent of the income of the poor goes to food.

But our president says “Mukha namang maganda ang sitwasyon natin. Hindi tayo magkukulang sa bigas. At tinitingnan natin lahat ng paraan upang ang presyo ay ma-control natin at hindi naman masyadong tataas.”

Given how the people in Pulse Asia’s March reading continue to approve of his performance thus far, and repose much trust in him, all we can do is wish him the best.

Sana nga po, Apo Presidente, mag-dilang anghel kayo.

To combat inflation, the Bangko Sentral has adopted textbook tactics, tightening liquidity through higher interest rates.

But it has admitted that after a series of interest rate hikes, the problem cannot be licked without the supply side being addressed.

And therein lies the problem. Having neglected agriculture for so long, there are no quick fixes to the food supply situation.

As Dr. Fermin rued, “The only problem is that the Department of Agriculture is at a loss, given that it lacks any systematic plan to address the supply challenge. This is glaringly manifested by the fact that DA has not shared to the public any plan or program on how it will boost production.”

Bewildered is perhaps the appropriate descriptive for the Department of Agriculture.

Bothered by the lack of supply, but bewildered on how to solve the situation?

This writer had hoped that with the president, mismo, taking the helm of the bewildered department that bothers us most these days, things would get moving on the supply side.

Initially, his being both chief executive and agriculture czar has prodded Congress and his own economic managers to give a hefty increase in the budget for the department.

How to use these bigger allotments wisely, prudently, and achieving optimum output is another problem though.

Implementation is the problem.

And it is much too difficult, more than herculean, for a president no matter how “great” (Pres. Marcos Sr’s favorite adjective) or “bright” (Pres. Duterte’s favorite descriptive), to delve into the nitty-gritty of implementation, more so when “there is no systematic plan” other than the optical illusion of Kadiwa.

It will be a year come May 9 this year since the president received an overwhelming mandate, by the grace of God and the sovereign will of the Filipino people.

Will he by the 10th of May announce a new secretary of the bewildered department he now helms?

Dr. Adriano observed that “we changed the leadership of the DA at least nine times, meaning that each DA secretary served for at most only two-and-a-half years. Given that agricultural development is long-gestating in nature, the result was a discontinuity in policies, plans and programs.”

Two and a half years of DA stewardship is the average, given some two decades of its contemporary history.

Pres. Erap had Willy Dar standing-in for the late Edong Angara, who lasted for another year before he became executive secretary in the last 13 days of the shortened administration.

PGMA had Leonardo Montemayor, followed by Cito Lorenzo, then Arthur Yap, but the department under Cito was bewitched by the fertilizer scandal wrought by his undersecretary who was closer than he to the powers-that-be.

Arthur Yap, from NFA to DA, had a FIELDS strategy, but the 2008 rice price balloon to stratospheric heights hit us, when a metric ton of imported rice rose to some 1,200 US dollars per, triple the normal price.

DA and NFA in the last three years of PGMA kept announcing the year before that we would have tight supplies, and naturally, the exporters started increasing their prices.

Then came Procy Alcala, who promised us self-sufficiency in rice, which our late president PNoy echoed even in ASEAN fora, but what we got instead were high-priced garlic and onions, thanks to a “garlic queen.”

But because PNoy was bemused by Procy a lot, he couldn’t let go, and instead came up with a “Solomonic” solution — the Presidential Adviser on Food Security and Agricultural Modernization, naming backyard farmer/gardener Kiko Pangilinan to it.

Then came PRRD who in the early years retained the PNoy formula, with Manny Pinol at DA but retaining the major agencies like NFA and NIA under Leoncio Evasco, another presidential adviser.

In the end he had to let go of Pinol, while his adviser Evasco ran for governor of Bohol, and, at the prodding of his economic managers led by Sonny Dominguez, Willy Dar was resurrected to the post he held 20 years ago under Erap.

PBBM could have retained the well-trained fellow Ilocano, Willy Dar, but he did not.

Now, the department has yet to have a full-time secretary, almost a year since.

Bothered, bewildered, and bewitched?

I remember Lorenz Hart’s lyrics for Richard Rodger’s beautiful music in the movie Pal Joey – “bewitched, bothered and bewildered.”

“Is there no one else?” – Brad Pitt as Achilles dared his enemies whose champion he had just slain.

What used to be a model of efficiency during Marcos Primero’s time, under the Bong Tanco, Jess Tanchanco and Sonny Escudero triumvirate has now become a department with few takers under Marcos Segundo’s “Bayan, Babangon Muli”?