A full-time DA chief

With a new secretary of agriculture appointed, is the campaign promise of P20-a-kilo rice finally attainable?

Not today, according to fishing tycoon Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.

Facing the media for the first time since his appointment to the Department of Agriculture (DA), Laurel said the P20 rice “aspiration” was “not possible” at this time, when global rice prices are at a 15-year high.

The best that can be done at this point, he said, is to make rice more affordable. As instructed by President Marcos, Laurel said this means modernizing and mechanizing farming as well as providing sufficient irrigation and the right seeds.

In fact, with palay prices already at P22 per kilo as of October and a possible strong El Niño ahead, the rice situation could worsen in the coming months. There’s speculation that BBM finally let go of his concurrent post as DA chief to avoid having the issue drag down his survey ratings further.

Apart from dashing hopes for P20-a-kilo rice, another interesting declaration of Laurel, a boyhood pal of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was that his appointment was no payback for his P30 million contribution to BBM’s political party Partido Federal ng Pilipinas during the 2022 election campaign.

Perhaps the more accurate phrase is that the appointment was not merely political payback. After all, several agriculture industry organizations have lauded the appointment, saying Laurel, who was president of Frabelle Fishing Corp. prior to joining government, has the credentials for the job.

Surely BBM, who will be held to his “aspiration” for P20-a-kilo rice until his final moment in office, will want someone of competence to at least make a credible effort to deliver on that campaign OPM (oh promise me).

Taking on the DA portfolio in a concurrent capacity, BBM had explained, was his way of showing the importance he gave to agriculture. When he finally let go of the post, after food-fueled inflation pulled down his ratings, capability must have been a factor in his selection of a full-time secretary of agriculture.

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The campaign support, however, certainly didn’t hurt; P30 million (the declared amount; there’s unavoidable speculation about the undeclared) is nothing to sneeze at. Some time ago there was coffee shop talk about a prominent candidate who reportedly lost that amount in personal funds for his campaign and drank himself to death, literally.

Laurel doesn’t have to be defensive about it; payback is part of Philippine realpolitik. A president appoints to his official family only persons he knows and trusts, and political supporters are natural priority choices.

Laurel’s family business, however, will be under constant scrutiny for ways by which that P30 million might be recovered, with a handsome return on investment.

Small-scale fishers’ groups were among the first to express concern about his appointment. The fishers fear that Laurel will push for allowing the entry of large commercial fishing vessels (like Frabelle’s) into municipal waters (within 15 kilometers from the coastline) where only small fishing boats are currently allowed.

More than the speculative reports about political payback, Laurel must confront the high expectations surrounding his appointment.

Now that the DA chief is no longer an absentee secretary, people are expecting dramatic improvements in food supply and prices, outside the heavily subsidized Kadiwa outlets.

But because the country’s agriculture system, from farm to market, has deteriorated as badly as the quality of Philippine education, dramatic improvements can be a tall order.

The calamitous state of agriculture is one of the major factors in the sustained high poverty rate in the Philippines. Instead of boosting domestic production, the country has become increasingly dependent on imports for basic agricultural commodities including rice, sugar and meats.

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It’s a national shame that we import up to 93 percent of our salt needs. We’re even importing large galunggong or round scad, which the Chinese are believed to be catching in our own sovereign waters in the West Philippine Sea.

It says a lot about the sorry state of agriculture that fisheries is the worst economic performer in our agriculture sector.

If Laurel fails to pull off a miracle in the P20-a-kilo rice OPM, perhaps he can make dramatic improvements in his field of business, fisheries.

Along with questions about how much better Laurel can be as DA chief than his predecessor, who was constantly distracted by plans for his next overseas trip, there’s speculation on the impact on BBM’s survey ratings of his bowing out of the DA.

Now that he has distanced himself a bit from food security issues and that P20-a-kilo rice hallucination, will BBM’s rating slide stop?

High performance ratings make governance easier in this country. It allows a president to maintain a super majority in Congress and make local government executives behave less like independent republics.

A steady decline in ratings will inevitably be interpreted as an indication that an official is doing something wrong. Loyalty and friendship are tenuous in Philippine politics. An official who suffers a sustained ratings fall can see erstwhile friends avoiding him like he has the Alpha strain of pre-vaccine COVID.

It will be catastrophic for BBM if, after his disappointing stint in the DA, his choice as replacement fails to do better.