May the assistance be real!
Why do I read, every now and then, on the newspapers, of certain projects of the Department of Agriculture and yet see nothing of them on the ground? Well, it is possible that I might not have encountered them because these are implemented in areas that I have not been to or equally probable that I might not have the opportunity to talk to the very people who benefitted therefrom.
With those possibilities loudly reverberating in mind, I have taken efforts to validate, in my own modest ways, each time a project is launched by this government agency. For example, when we were experiencing a long dry spell not very long ago, I read that the department was providing drought-stricken communities with pumps powered small generating sets. It was very well publicized. The government reaction to an adverse situation was critical yet realistic. Of course, pogi points were earned by this government. As the news was written, this government agency chose generator-powered pumps so that the equipment could be transported from place to place wherever water could be drawn for use by famished farmlands. Applause!
The drought affected my neighbors in a barangay high up in the city's mountain where I maintain a small garden plot. Their farms were parched. In my conversation with them, I learned that, for the first time in many years, the nearby creeks dried up. How sad were we to admit the bitter fact that the blistering heat was too much for their plants to wither. And, more importantly, the farmers needed water for their own consumption.
Believing that the news account was true, I wrote a most formal letter to the regional office. It was an inquiry on how to avail of the needed government assistance. The day following, when I visited my mountain-neighbors, I relayed the information that I was trying to solicit help. You could see how their smiles, some reluctant because perhaps of prior sad experience, seemed to appease the creases on their faces, creases that drought, I surmised, inflicted. Really, it was my intention to get one such pump for my neighbors and it was supposed to be the kind of care government could shower upon depressed families.
I enthusiastically followed up my letter. Since I had the chance to obtain cellular phone numbers of respected agency workers, I sent text messages to them, almost tirelessly. So, would you understand how frustrated I was to learn, quite belatedly, thru a text message also, that no such assistance was available? Yet, when I reminded the personality with whom I exchanged texts that news releases were made of such program I was informed that the regional office was still waiting for the equipment and supplies. In other words, the project was, plain publicity.
Last week, I read again, somewhere, of reports that the Department of Agriculture was offering other forms of assistance to farmers who were victims of the recent natural calamities. This time, farm implements, like tractors (wow!), in addition to seedlings and fertilizers were reportedly distributed. Such form of assistance, unprecedented, to say the least, had to be deemed as the best the government could provide.
My farmer-neighbors also suffered from 2013 Yolanda, and the extreme cold spell early last year. Their crops were not as heavily devastated by the super typhoon as those suffered by those living in Eastern Visayas but they too needed help. Also, some of their farm animals virtually froze to death in the cold weather. And I thought of bridging them and the Department of Agriculture so that help for the former could be generated by the latter.
But, I remember that in a prior setting, while trying to source some relief to needy farmers, I got burned. It was not difficult to imagine that some of those who thought I was resourceful enough to get the much needed help sneered. After all, I was not unlike a purveyor of false information. Without their knowing that my failure was not really mine but could only be traced to faulty news reporting, they would only entertain thoughts that I would be pulling their leg should I reprise what I attempted.
My point in writing in this column is to inform the Department of Agriculture officialdom that some farmers in Barangay Paril, Cebu City can use the kind of assistance that was printed in the papers recently. I hope they bring such help to my neighbors.
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