The Villar DNA

(Conclusion)

Camille Villar is well prepared to fill the Senate post that her mother, Cynthia Villar, is vacating this year. Her mother, she admits, has left instructions for her to follow if and when she gets the official mandate following the May 12 local election.

First and foremost of Senator Cynthia’s advocacies that Camille will have to follow up on involves the agricultural sector, even as Camille also has her own progressive views about improving agricultural education.

She noted that the average age of Filipino farmers is around 56 years old. “So we actually have to get our younger generation to be interested in farming. And I think the way that we can do that is to show the best practices and advances in farming around the world. Agriculture has actually evolved a lot.”

In France, she explained, their farms are very modernized. Unfortunately, Filipinos, she noted, sometimes fear modernizing a farm as they fear there will be loss of jobs. But actually, she assured, “if our farms become more efficient and our farms grow and we’re able to produce more, we’ll still be able to employ a lot more people.”

She believes that change must start with education. “I think you have to make agriculture more interesting and appealing to young people. I think one of the things state universities and colleges (SUCs) need to focus on is innovation in farming... we already need to put the advances in technology into practice.”

Camille believes that SUCs “need to evolve and they need to modernize, and they need to already integrate the advances in technology in their curriculum.” She believes that farming and agriculture can be made very interesting.

Additionally, she sees the need for changes in teaching farmers about marketing their produce, “very traditional yung pagturo natin ng marketing.” 

The Department of Trade and Industry, she credits, however, for offering an app for farmers. But the challenges were in implementation. “It was difficult. We don’t have a lot of Wi-Fi... so the apps don’t always work. I think when you modernize and you have the machines, then they can become more profitable and then that would entice them to stay.”

As for her mother, Camille admits, “My mom had a lot of bilin in agriculture. That’s why I really studied it.” These include implementation of already passed laws such as the Anti-Economic Sabotage Law and those for the corn industry. But the most important instruction of her mother is: “There are a lot of good laws already. Please make sure that they are implemented and rolled out properly and that the funding and the programs are used specifically for the different programs.”

Thus, if Camille is elected to the Senate, among the top of her agenda will be to review and look at existing laws. “I think first, one of the things that I want to look at is that we already have an existing set of laws, a lot of good laws. In fact, a lot of the problems we have now can already be solved with the laws that we have now, but our problem has really been implementation.”

She cited as an example a law her mom had helped pass a few years ago which was the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act. “And then parang walang nangyari, walang na-prosecute na rice trader (and yet our local producers continue to suffer losses), right? So then they had to update it... hopefully, there would be different penalties and hopefully something would happen with the law. But until now, we’re still waiting,” she laments.

Camille elaborated, “Sometimes when they ask us about the problems that are faced by the different regions or the concerns of the people, when you look back, actually, there’s already a law addressing that problem, it just hasn’t been implemented. Sometimes in Congress, we pass lots and lots of laws. And then after two or three years, there are still no clear implementing rules. I think that’s where my background in business comes in because you know, how in business we’re trained to be efficient and we’re trained that something has to be implementable.

Sometimes with our laws, it’s very theoretical. It’s well written, but can it be implemented quickly? So I want to look at some of the laws that already exist, and make sure that they’re implemented properly, because what is the use if we don’t benefit from it.”

She stressed, “I don’t want to do a law na parang I started it when I started, and then by the time I finished my term, wala pang resulta, hindi pa na-implement, wala pa yung mga benefits. And actually my dad also showed me a lot of the laws that they’ve created and they get frustrated because it gets lost in translation.”

Manny Villar clarified that his point of view has become more cynical, which is normal for old politicians who’ve been there and done that. “I’ve experienced a lot. I have seen them all and it takes a lot to be optimistic.” He assured, however, that “from all those things you learn.”

On the other hand, he also warned that one landmine that Camille has to watch out for is politics. Thankfully, he pointed out, Camille has seen and experienced a lot of the political upheavals that the elder Villar had been through during his political career since she was the one who was by his side as his two elder sons were abroad pursuing further education.

And indeed, the aspiring millennial Senate candidate is in the midst of carefully straddling the opposing parties of President Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte.

Father and daughter were quick to point out that they remain friendly to both camps and strive to work well with all their political colleagues.