Give losses in agriculture a face

HERE we go again. Now that Typhoon Lando has exited Pangasinan, our government authorities are rushing to give the public an overall picture of the total damage to life, properties and infrastructure in the province.

We have no doubt that the estimates in numbers are as close as these can be to the reality on the ground. Counting and identifying human casualties is perhaps the easiest chore, because there are real faces behind these tragedies. Buildings and bridges come next. The most difficult is estimating damages to agriculture.

The irony of reporting damages to agriculture is that government chooses to count only land areas affected, but never the number of farmers affected. When authorities report millions of crops lost, it relates mainly to availability of supply and expected volume of importation. Lost in the message is the fact that the millions lost are actually direct losses suffered by the poor farmers, worse, nothing is ever mentioned how the farmers can be helped to recoup their losses, to save them from the clutches of loan sharks that prey on them.

The provincial government should already consider adopting what the local governments in Nueva Ecija are doing – taking out crop insurance for their qualified farmers. Unless our government starts looking after the welfare of our farmers, soon our vast rice lands will become wastelands or sold and converted into commercial development. Soon, there will not be enough rice for future generations of Pangasinan.

Let’s begin to give agriculture a face in official situation reports on damages. And let’s hope and pray our government will begin to provide our dirt poor farmers the protection they so desperately needed for the past decades from an average of at least five typhoons a year.

  

Miriam manipulation

MIRIAM Defensor-Santiago is, at the very least, nothing but funny.  She has been that way the last few months.  Or has it been years? She would say she was sick but before you knew it, she would pop up in a Senate hearing to lecture us on law—if not lambaste people she didn’t like.

On some days, she’d be concocting corny one-liners while launching her book containing mostly, well, corny one-liners as well.  Yet, she said she suffered from fatigue, high blood pressure and, lately, cancer.  And not just cancer but Stage 4 cancer, which, to most medical experts, could kill the afflicted in a matter of months.

But phenomenally, Santiago has said she is cured of cancer.  And to prove her claim, she ran for President in the May 2016 elections.  Many do not find that funny, though, including us.  Thus, will the senator please show proof of her clean bill of health?  Otherwise, all of it was nothing but buffoonery. A cheap shot at leg-pulling.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

Back to Homepage

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments