Malls – hogs – empowerment

Before anything else just a short note to DOTC officials sleeping on the job: last Sunday the X-Ray machine at the General Santos City Airport was out of order. It was out of order before, was repaired, and quickly died. Last Sunday, I saw anywhere from 400 to 500 passengers cram into the airport where approximately 7 security personnel helplessly struggled to inspect over a thousand baggage. Even though at least a hundred boxes of frozen tuna were part of the process, I did not see them open any of the boxes.

I also learned that the airport has been operating on generator power as part of the standard. Several passengers commented: Wow, has GenSan gone back to manual operations of an International Airport? If you think that sucks, imagine how we felt arriving at NAIA Terminal 2 on board a 777-400 only to discover that there was no NAIA ground staff present to help open the door at the tube!!! They were reportedly out to lunch!

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Time was when many of us saw “Malls” and shopping strips as a threat to many small business owners, Mom & Pop stores and potentially developing the wrong value system among the youth. Fortunately, malls like money are neutral they can be good or they can be evil, that all depends on the community, the patrons and government tasked to regulate them.

Through the years, I have seen how malls have evolved from the stereotyped cash cows to becoming multi-purpose centers. Instead of simply being a point of sale and center of commercialism, the malls have in fact become family centers, places of worship, trade venues and more recently training grounds for various industries. Last Saturday, I was invited by my friends at BMEG, the country’s leading manufacturer of animal feeds to moderate a public seminar for people interested in “Backyard Hog Raising.” For this event BMEG flew in many technical people to General Santos City where the Backyard Hog Raisers Convention was being held at the SM Mall in GenSan.

While most people consider GenSan or General Santos City as the Tuna Capital of the Philippines and home turf of the country’s Pambansang Kamao and global champion Manny Pacquiao, what I didn’t realize is that GenSan is the only place in the Philippines that is completely free of “foot & mouth disease” and is home to several of the largest pig farms in the Philippines. In fact piggery and hog raising is such big things in GenSan, that “pig stories” are also extra large.

Our entertaining driver told us about a special flight from Canada that was chock full of piglets, all 10,000 of them which took over a week to off load and caused the GenSan International Airport to stink to high heavens! Considering I saw the largest plane in the world deliver a super sized power generator for Mindanao, the idea of a jumbo plane with 10,000 piglets no longer puzzles me.

Anyway, GenSan is as huge as it is wide and quickly taking on a more urban suburban look and feel than provincial. There are lots of hotels and shops but one of the most striking things is that they have such wide multi-lane roads. The main road was almost as wide as C-5. Clearly the planners and local officials are thinking 20 years ahead of their time.

For our event, BMEG utilized one of the “movie houses” of SM Cinema, which might have seemed strange for an agricultural type activity. But I quickly realized the wisdom in the choice of venue. First of all, malls are still a much bigger attraction for people outside Metro Manila. On weekends almost everyone has something to do or buy at the mall. So we had more participants attending longer or for the most part of our affair because they did not have to worry about rushing home to cook -pick-up or care for family members. The air-conditioned venue was also perfect on a hot summer day, the seating structure guaranteed a clear view of the speakers and presentation, there were no worries about enough toilets and everybody knows how to get to there.

While we were at the mall talking about hogs, it dawned upon me that all of us should spend more time talking about empowerment rather than just employment. Why is government so obsessed with unemployment when it can turn its attention to empowerment? During the BMEG seminar, I profiled many of the attendees and learned that many of them were either retirees, young people looking for opportunities or people interested in having their own livelihood because jobs were not readily available. If no one can give you a job, why not give yourself one?

The beginners course or Introduction to Hog Raising was conducted for exactly that purpose. To show people that backyard hog raising is already a science but a simple science and those who are willing to follow the system whether with one pig or ten pigs can actually have their own livelihood. I also learned or confirmed my own observations about how we view hog raising or piggery. Everyone assumes you need many pigs to do well. Not really. You’re better off spoiling one or two piglets for 5 to 6 months than struggling with ten. Two require less maintenance than ten and of course produces less poop. Many people are concerned about poop or smelly pig shit but that’s because they’ve never learned of the probiotic system that eliminates smells using the “EM” solution (available at Harbest) which is used for water, feeds and cleaning and eliminates odor. In addition we bury the poop or compost mix them and save a lot of money on fertilizer.

Of course the government people will say: we already do that! Yes in a bureaucratic, selective, politically patronizing way. Piglets are given to supporters, Kamag-Anak and friends. There is no thorough approach and support, which is why people fail. In all 58 years of my life I have not met an agricultural extension worker, a barangay based technician! It’s all sariling sikap. That is what’s wrong with government, they know what to do, but they simply don’t do enough! Then they wonder about unemployment!