Miracle man

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. has a miracle man. 

He is Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., 57, a fishing, canning and ship repair tycoon. As the president and CEO, he built the family-owned Frabelle Fishing Corp., which he joined at age 19 to feed his eldest, into the largest integrated multinational deep-sea fishing and food conglomerate in the Philippines, if not in the world. He modernized the fishing business. 

According to his dad, Francis Sr., were it not for Francis Jr.’s boldness, courage and imagination, the family would not have lasted this far or succeeded immensely in deep sea fishing and other businesses.

A college dropout, Kiko or Frannie learned the vagaries of living through life at sea, which Quora describes as “fun, scary, risky, magical” and may I add, awesomely profitable. Frabelle’s fishing boats would venture as far out as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and for two and a half to three years out in the high seas. “The Philippines is no longer a fishing paradise,” he laments, thanks to unmitigated dynamite fishing. 

Today, Kiko is a multi-billionaire (easily P10 billion net), with a teen-looking beauty for a partner and a business network here and abroad and friends in high places (like BBM).

In college, I joined a university medical mission where we stayed in a decrepit Navy boat in the high seas for six weeks. Food, water and fuel supplies were rationed. Weather was unpredictable. And the islands we visited were wonderful for the people’s warmth and hospitality and the exotic food. So I know a little of life at sea.

Joining the government, Kiko gave up a life of excitement and luxury (except the teen-looking partner) to have a boss (BBM, a boyhood buddy), to live a modest life (according to the Constitution), be a public servant (to 116 million Filipinos) and do the impossible – produce a rice surplus and achieve food self-sufficiency. If Sec. Kiko could execute his marching orders in the next four and a half years, he would make Hercules’ 12 tasks pale in comparison.

Since becoming agriculture secretary himself in July 2022, BBM had been on the lookout for a permanent helmsman at what used to be government’s premier department. Agriculture in the 1960s accounted for as much as 60 percent of total economic production or GDP. It was the backbone of the economy, then the most prosperous in Asia, after Japan. Aggie’s share has steadily fallen, to 30 percent by 1970, 21 percent in 1992-1998 and to 8.6 percent by 2023, the lowest ever. In the meantime, the population tripled, from 37.5 million in 1970 to 116 million today, an increase of 209 percent. 

In five decades, agriculture output grew just 0.2 percent per year on average while the population swelled 2-3 percent per year. The result was massive food shortages, 25 percent of demand, and never-ending rice crises.

The rice shortage is four to five million tons a year, which have to be imported. At $600 per ton a four-million-ton deficit is $2.4 billion (P140 billion), money that could fund the entire Department of Agriculture in a year, or six critical departments combined – foreign affairs (P47.5 billion), labor (P45.3 billion), DOST (P28.5 billion), agrarian reform (P10.4 billion), migrant workers (P7.8 billion) and tourism (P3.3 billion). Rice hit above $1,000 per ton in April 2008. That’s how expensive rice imports are.

BBM is unfazed about the challenges at DA. He knows Sec. Kiko will deliver. “I know his persona,” BBM declares, “he works hard, he understands the business.”

“Farmers and fishermen are close to my heart,” the DA chief confides. “I have personally witnessed their hardships and known their dreams.” “I listen and work with them,” the secretary told me in an interview. Kiko meets farmers weekly in his Quezon City office.

BBM became convinced of his DA chief’s boldness and management prowess when he inaugurated last July 2023 the 25-megawatt Lake Mainit hydro power project, a joint venture between Frabelle Fishing Corp. and a large Japanese power company. Francis made it possible “after a long period of challenges.” It took a lot of courage, money and engineering skills. 

On board Frabelle’s huge fishing vessels for long periods at sea, Francis had to familiarize himself with plenty of high-tech machinery and equipment, like an engineer.

Together with DAR’s and the budgets of attached corporations, agriculture will get P211.3 billion next year, from P165 billion net this year. Kiko also will get $2.2 billion of official development assistance (ODA) for agriculture. Plus P100 billion of irrigation budget from DPWH. It takes P1 million to irrigate a hectare of farm.

With irrigation and technology, Kiko thinks he can produce up to eight tons per hectare of palay from the present four tons. It’s now possible to double rice yields, he says. Nueva Ecija does it. The DA chief will also put up drying and warehousing facilities to stabilize rice supply and prices.

Kiko will employ an army of 1,500 agricultural extension workers – one for each town, to handhold 2.9 million rice farmers nationwide. He calls his new Green Revolution Masagana Rice Program ng Ang Bagong Pilipinas. The aggie extension workers will be monitored through GPS. DA is putting up a P1-billion digital monitoring center to oversee the government’s various food programs and personnel.

Can Francis engineer an agricultural miracle? With bold visioning, technology and resources as his command (his DA budget has been increased to P128 billion from P108.5 billion in 2023, the eighth largest Cabinet budget), he is hopeful he can bring a sea change. 

DA cannot promise a rice surplus. Imports will continue. Rice retail prices, however, will go down. Food is 55 percent of a poor family’s budget. Rice alone eats up 20 percent of that.

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