FMRs for food security?

Classical Latin finis coronat opus, meaning the final result defines the value of the effort best. This aptly described the wrong coordinates on the sites of farm-to-market-roads (FMR) that went into the final print of the proposed 2027 General Appropriations Bill). In particular, the Department of Agriculture (DA) found out the wrong coordinates affected only eight (8) out of the 1,669 FMR projects listed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) under the 2027 GAB.

In our  Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday, DA official spokesman Arnel de Mesa disclosed the eight FMR projects with wrong geo-tag coordinates were discovered belatedly by the DA upon review. After a budget watchdog group denounced its existence in the 2027 GAB, DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. ordered the review of all the FMR projects that were allegedly located elsewhere outside the Philippines.

The red-flagged FMRs came from the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) that bared them at the Senate finance committee budget hearing on the House-approved 2027 GAB. Some of the geo-tag coordinates allegedly placed some of the sites to as far as on the Benham Rise all the way to Celebes Sea.

At the Senate budget hearing, PBC co-convenor Kenneth Isaiah Abante credited their 5,500 volunteers of web and software developers, or “angry nerds” as he dubbed them, who discovered these wrong coordinates of FMRs. Abante told the Senators the “angry nerds” created an artificial intelligence (AI)-aided app that went through the indicated sites of the FMRs supposedly scattered around the country.

De Mesa explained the glitch arose from the encoding of the decimals pertaining to the longitudes and latitudes. Measured in “degrees” north or south of the equator, ranging from 0° to 90° at the poles, the latitude and longitude are the imaginary lines that form a global grid to pinpoint the exact location on earth using this pair of coordinates. De Mesa noted the “degrees” were not recognized by the computer and translated them into kilometers ten times over.

DA assistant secretary for Operations U-Nichols Manalo who was testifying at the same time last Wednesday at the House of Representatives’ committee on agriculture and food identified eight FMRs with erroneous decoding. Manalo noted the eight FMRs were included in the House-allotted P61.9 billion which incorporated unutilized El Niño funds from the Congress-approved 2026 national budget.

“We’d like to inform the (House) committee that the list for the 1,669 FMR projects are within the NEP. Those were not, those were not insertions, or inserted FMR road projects,” Manalo told the House panel. The House-approved 2027 GAB, or House Bill 10858, purportedly provided for additional fund support to sustain food production, limit income losses for farmers and fisherfolk, and keep local food affordable during the projected long period of dry period due to the El Niño phenomenon.

More than two million hectares of rice farms could be impacted by El Niño, according to the DA spokesman which consequently result to a decline in rice production. El Niño is expected to cut the country’s palay or unmilled rice production by at least 700,000 metric tons (MT) in 2026. But based on DA’s revised projection, it was raised to one million M/T since the effects of the El Niño are expected to peak by December this year and last until the first semester of 2027, De Mesa conceded.

At the Kapihan sa Manila Bay, Danilo Fausto, president of the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. (PCAFI) accepted the DA admission of error was “apparently not intentional” on the part of the government. Fausto, however, called for better vetting process to prevent a repeat of such errors amid cases of mis-use of public funds like the flood control projects scandal in the previous Congress-approved budget laws.

Fausto echoed though their fears that the agricultural lands where these FMRs will pass through might be converted into residential or subdivisions or private resorts as done in the past by unscrupulous lawmakers. To the private sector groups from the PCAFI, Fausto stressed, they worry more on the vested interests that went into these FMRs.

Speaking for the umbrella organization of all federations of agriculture groups, the PCAFI president cautioned the government from wanton conversion of these productive lands would compromise food security of our country. He pointed out the country’s agriculture is the most vulnerable to the challenges posed by climate change like El Niño phenomenon, or the long dry period, and its opposite La Niña, or the prolonged rainy period.

Composed of more than 50 federations of various agriculture and food producers and its sub-sectors from fishery to livestock, Fausto cited the PCAFI account for 95 percent of the food security in the Philippines with the government contributing only the remaining five percent.

“I told the Secretary (Tiu) we need FMRs to accelerate delivery of agricultural products to the market. But will they really service agricultural lands or only encourage subdivision development?” Fausto rhetorically asked the DA.

De Mesa reassured the PCAFI there are existing laws that regulate the land conversion dis-allowing irrigated and tillable lands to be converted to residential or subdivision use. He cited the role of the DA is the classification of lands but it is the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that regulates conversion of lands.

Incidentally, DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III is the only remaining original Cabinet member of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) from day one of his administration on June 30, 2022. As PBBM’s trusted “childhood” friend within his immediate inner circle, no wonder Estrella is permanently designated member in “caretaker” Cabinet committee whenever the President travels abroad.

The DAR Secretary’s namesake grandfather, the late Estrella Sr., served as the long-time Agrarian Reform Minister under PBBM’s late father, ex-president Marcos Sr., from 1971 to 1986. Before PBBM appointed him as DAR chief, Estrella served multiple terms in Congress starting 1987, the last one of which was his being Abono party list representative.

Other than the eight wrongly geo-tagged coordinates, red flags must remain for all these FMRs.