DA 8888

While President Bongbong Marcos is unable to find or convince a suitable candidate to become the next secretary of agriculture, he should take advantage of the time to learn more about the level of corruption inside the Department of Agriculture.

I recently learned first-hand about a situation where a group of businessmen had undertaken a project to promote a particular product used for large-scale agriculture. As a pre-requisite the investors and associates asked for guidance from industry experts, submitted their product to independent researchers and laboratories for evaluation and participated in trials and field tests.

The product was so good that they easily got approval from the government regulatory body in charge of such products and was quickly picked up by national distribution firms and cooperatives. Inspired by such positive results and reception, someone who had access to PBBM allegedly informed “Malacañang” about the product that could be a big boost to PBBM’s push for local food production. The story I picked up was the product was referred to people at the Department of Agriculture who “thumbed down” or disapproved the product.

The “mystery” lies in the fact that it took the private group several months of academic and laboratory research and tests, actual farm site testing and regulatory challenge and processing to get where they were, and it only took the DA people a few weeks to determine the product was not good enough. In other words, not even the interest of the President is enough to make certain groups inside the DA think twice before blocking any direct competition to their preferred products, brands or suppliers.

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Speaking of fearless, an insider has told me that an official suspended by the Office of the Ombudsman was known to join meetings with people making presentations and proposals at the department. The official would act very helpful to representatives of companies and suppliers, who were clueless that the guy being nice to them has been under suspension for some time! From what I know, individuals who are under investigation, under suspension or facing administrative cases are not supposed to be anywhere inside the premises of the government office.

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Early this week, I got to know a journalist from the south who knew a lot of things about biddings and procurement of the Department of Agriculture. As I listened in on the conversation, the gentleman said that if a company wants to sell its agricultural product, they have two choices:

First is to sell direct to farmers and earn very little and do lots of work going from farm to farm or presenting to cooperatives. In the end very few are willing to pay even for a very good product because the government through the DA has institutionalized a system of handouts or giving things away for free to farmers.

The second and more attractive option is to sell to the DA in bulk but at a higher price in order to cover “corruption related contingency expenses,”cut a deal with the RED or Regional Executive Director, and let the DA pay the bill and give away the product to farmers. My fellow journalist emphasized that as distasteful and disgusting as the case maybe, no RED stamp of approval – no business.

Sadly, it does not end there. The journalist reminded me that agricultural development at the provincial LGU level is also dependent on the approval of the governor. In some cases, the RED may have a suki while the governor has a campaign contributor who has products or services to sell. The decision is often dependent on how greedy or how much of a bully the governor is.

This series of incidents is just for relatively simple off the shelf products. This does not include supply of machineries, technology transfer or infrastructure development. Given that hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money is ploughed into these giveaways, why has there been no investigation and prosecution of wrongdoing?

Former officials of the DA who have resigned or gone into early retirement out of disgust or political pressure all tell tales, but Malacañang and Congress have acted like the proverbial three monkeys who see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing. Of course, they know everything, they just choose to do nothing!

If PBBM is serious about there being no room for corruption in his New Society, then prove it! Set up an inter-agency task force to thoroughly study the depth and extent of corruption in the Department of Agriculture as well as among industry participants and corruptors. At the very least do that: clean your own house before you pass it on to someone else; set up DA 8888?

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The DPWH and Secretary Manny Bonoan have been under a lot of criticism for causing traffic jams resulting from their continuous road repairs or asphalt patch work in the past several weeks. As far as I am concerned, it’s a case of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” – either way the traffic jams will happen due to potholes or due to patch work.

I myself would be happy if Secretary Manny Bonoan would direct one of his road crews to our neighborhood here in Barrio Kapitolyo, Pasig where the once good quality roads East and West Capitol have now been destroyed by unusually heavy traffic volume due to the construction of the Lawton-Santa Monica bridge from BGC to Shaw.

This was the fear of residents from the very beginning and hoping against hope, we somehow wished the DPWH would proactively maintain the road, particularly West Capitol Drive. So now, more cars are forced to drive even slower, which defeats the entire purpose of the bridge through Kapitolyo. At the very least please have the decency to fix the roads.

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