Spoiler

Among the trophies brought home by President Rodrigo Duterte from his visits to Beijing and Tokyo are agreements that will enhance our banana exports. Tropical fruit exports are among the brightest spots of Philippine agriculture, enabling millions to move out of the poverty trap.

The banana export deals sealed in Beijing and Tokyo come on the heels of the lifting of trade sanctions by the UN on Iran. Prior to these sanctions, 30 percent of our banana exports went to Iran. Our exports to that large country should soon pick up to the levels they were before trade sanctions were imposed.

During a recent call on Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, the Iranian ambassador to Manila Mohammed Tanhaei said his country needed more bananas from the Philippines. That is indeed good news for our farmers.

In Beijing, Philippine negotiators were able to convince their Chinese hosts to relax the unreasonable restrictions imposed on our banana and mango exports during the period of tension between our two countries. The massive Chinese market is now ready to receive what we export. That translates into billions of pesos in business benefitting poor rural folk.

In Tokyo a deal was struck between our exporters and Farmind Corp., a major fruit distributor in Japan. The distribution company, whose president Tatsuo Horiuchi is a close friend of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, agreed to import 20 million boxes of banana from the Philippines each year. This deal alone is worth at least P5 billion.

In an interview with reporters in Tokyo, Alvarez said that he asked his friend to take in more Philippine bananas since this would benefit agrarian reform beneficiaries and rebel returnees. His friend obliged.

Meanwhile, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez formally asked the Japanese government to lift tariffs on Philippine bananas. Our bananas are slapped a tariff of two percent from April to October and 18 percent for the other months. If tariffs are lifted, our bananas will be more competitive with other fruit imports entering Japan.

Bohol Rep. Arthur Yap, who was part of the president’s delegation, noted that improved banana exports will go a long way towards alleviating rural poverty. Yap was a former agriculture secretary and he reminded reporters that two-thirds of our poor are in the agricultural sector.

“This is like a gift from President Duterte,” says Stephen Antig, executive director of Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA). When we were forced to stop exporting to Iran and when China tightened restrictions on our fruit exports, the banana industry receded. Now that sector is very optimistic.

Happiest of all are the agrarian reform beneficiaries and rebel returnees who do contract growing for the banana exporters. When the industry was down, they tightened their belts. Now they look forward to a better life.

Orthodoxy

Not all is rosy, however.

Just as President Duterte was busy chalking up improved agriculture trade agreements with China and Japan, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano called for a review of all agriculture ventures agreements (AVAs). These involved leaseback agreements between agrarian reform beneficiaries and corporate plantation owners, enabling long-term use of the land for agribusiness.

A nominee of the political Left, Mariano represents a certain orthodoxy about our agriculture. In the leftist paradise, all farmers own small plots and happily engage in subsistence agriculture. It is this same obsolete vision of paradise that inspired Mariano to call for the suspension of all land conversions – a proposal immediately shot down by the rest of the Duterte economic team. The suspension of land conversion will force up the costs of housing and stymie the growth of Philippine industry.

For years, the political left has been very protective of their version of agricultural paradise. They pushed for restrictions limiting the rights of agrarian reform beneficiaries to sell their land or even to use these lands as collateral to obtain loans. Having fought for small farmers to own the land they till, the leftists then wanted to restrict the property rights of beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.

For years, communist guerrillas harassed farmers who chose to enter into AVAs with banana plantations – even if the farmers are wealthier because of these arrangements. It is the farmers themselves who defy communist agitators discouraging them from entering into more productive arrangements.

Having failed to sway the farmers, leftwing mass organizations turned to harassing the plantations instead. In the guise of environmental protection, for instance, they organized protests against the use of aerial spraying of banana plantations.

Mariano’s threat to review existing AVAs introduces uncertainty in the agribusinesses seeking to take advantage of improved conditions for our fruit exports. It throws a cold towel on investors seeking to provide capital for the modernization of our farming processes.

This threat to review the AVAs, on which banana cultivation depends, is unfair to countries such as Iran, China and Japan who entered into long-term supply contracts on the assumption of policy continuity in our agribusiness sector. These contracts are not only the source of profit for the banana sector. They also represent foreign currency inflows to our economy and sources of revenues for our government.

Mariano’s threat to shake up the standing policy on AVAs runs directly counter to President Duterte’s commitment, articulated during his inaugural address, that his government will not change rules in the middle of the game.

Most important, Mariano’s threat is a disservice to the farmers themselves who now enjoy the liberty to choose the most optimal use of the land assets they won through decades of struggle. This is, after all, a threat of heavy-handed political intervention in the economy.