Food Crisis Series 9: Can the Philippines regain its fame in the 70s as rice exporter?

 Food Crisis Series 9: 

Can the Philippines regain its fame in the 70s as rice exporter? 

More importantly, can we assure the Filipino people 

sufficient food at affordable level, particularly during the pandemic?

                                                             Dr Abe V Rotor*

After almost three decades now the country has been depending on imported rice to fill up its yearly deficit of no less than 10 percent of local production.  Rice is the staple food of 80 percent of our population. 

It's a fact that we had been exporting rice instead. Not only did we succeed in rice production but in the production of other basic food to the point of self-sufficiency level.  

Looking back at the government's program makes one wonder whatever happened, where have all the "heroes" gone, recognizing their achievement  - men in government led by then President Ferdinand Marcos, technocrats, farmer leaders, rural youth, even school children,  families raising fruits and vegetables in pots and on trellises, poultry and livestock and fish, too, on their backyard.  

Memory is kept fresh of people who did their part well, a number of them quiet in their retirement, yet contributing still to the good of the country in their own ways. Proudly I cite Domingo F Panganiban, an operations man in the words of Dr Emil Javier a prominent scientist and educator. Fondly called by his colleagues, co-workers, and at the grassroots as "Ding,"  I liken him to a general in the battlefield.  Indeed he went with his soldiers and fought in the battlefield. Not once, twice, thrice under different administrations. They say, "generals don't die, they just fade away."  Ding never had a dull movement.  He went to other battlefields abroad and proved the effectiveness of his strategy of food production.    

Filipinos' sense of food security is basically rice, and their sense of pride is having  food plentiful and affordable.  And there is no reason we fail to have them on the dining table at any time in spite of force majeure and other difficulties.      

Long had the euphoria of the People's revolution gone. Revolution has to shift to other causes such as "food self-sufficiency."  Disparity of prices of palay-on-the-farm and rice-in-the-market is highly questionable as to, who is getting the profit.  Fresh tomato at P200 a kilo, P250 a kilo of tilapia, drain a laborer's wage for a day.   We may skirt the issue with COVID pandemic as license.  We may be restricted in some ways but the will and determination to provide food for the people becomes greater and in fact the greatest resolve today. 

The test of genius is in crisis. We need people like Domingo F Panganiban, Emil Q Javier, and those who have gone ahead: Arturo Tanco Jr, (DA secretary), JD Drillon (DA Undersecretary) Roberto Fronda (NFAC Exec Director and Dep Adm NFA), Jesus Tanchanco (NFA adm), Dioscoro Umali (FAO chief Asia), among others I have had the opportunity to work with. 

May this article serve to inspire disciples of these great Filipinos and support President Rodrigo Duterte in assuring food and nutrition for the people.  

This is an excerpt of an article from the Internet.  With gratitude to my former supervisor in government service, humble and kind, industrious and dedicated, Ding Panganiban is indeed the field general in Philippine agriculture. 

DOMINGO F. PANGANIBAN- The Operations Man

Excerpts from Golden profiles: Domingo F. Panganiban

Posted July 8, 2010 by upcagolden2010 in Golden Profiles.

By Emil Q. Javier

Although arm-chair economists challenge this, rice self sufficiency remains the Holy Grail of Philippine agriculture. The country always had been importing rice and in the last few years, had been the world’s largest importer of the staple. However, for one brief shining moment in the 70s we did succeed in producing enough for our own people because of the MASAGANA 99 rice program. The man of the hour was the operations man of M-99- Domingo F. Panganiban.
He served with distinction as Director of the Bureau of Plant Industry and consequently as Executive Director of the National Food and Agriculture Council (NFAC). He was appointed career operations Deputy Minister of Philippine Ministry of Food and Agriculture in 1984. After the Marcos government fell in 1986 with EDSA, Panganiban left government and worked for the giant Filipino food company. 

As the technocrat, Panganiban’s name was invariably associated with Masagana 99, alongside President Marcos and former Agriculture Secretary Arturo Tanco. This signal achievement made him a highly sought international agriculture adviser and lead to several consultancy assignments for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in developing countries in Asia and Africa, particularly Vietnam, Lao PDR and Cambodia.
In 1996, recognizing the worth of Ding, then President Fidel V. Ramos recalled him from his international commitments and appointed him as Presidential Assistant for Agriculture. He became the Philippine Secretary of Agriculture in 2001 under President Joseph Estrada and then again under President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo in 2005. In November 2006, President Arroyo tapped Panganiban to lead the Philippine National Anti-Poverty Commission with cabinet rank.
Ding always had been a simple, unpretentious, hands-on and straight-talking public servant. The epitome of the operations man, he always gets things done and on time. Always a go-getter he brought vigor, enthusiasm and imagination to the traditionally phlegmatic and reactive bureaucracy. These traits endeared him to four Philippine Presidents, to countless friends and colleagues, to partner local government and non-government organizations but most importantly to small farmers.

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Dr Rotor was council secretary of the National Food and Agriculture Council (NFAC),  and  concurrent chief Agricultural Projects coordinator  under then NFAC deputy executive director Ding Panganiban.  He became regional director in Region 1, Cordillera and Cagayan Valley under the former National Grains Authority, and later director of the National Food Authority.  After opting early retirement, he was tapped adviser of the Philippine Senate on Agriculture and Food, joining the academe thereafter as university professor.