Hooray! Alcala exports 400 tons, but imports 4,500 times more

Send a mental hospital ambulance to the agriculture department, quick. And tell the psychiatric orderlies to use a straitjacket to pick up the hallucinating headman there.

Not even President Noynoy Aquino would restrain the misplaced enthusiasm of his Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala. The latter is jumping for joy like a chimpanzee that his delusion is now reality. Since taking office in 2010, he had set out to make the Philippines once again a rice exporter. And — hooray! — he has achieved it this year, the first time since 1975, by exporting a staggering 400 metric tons — 8,000 sacks, or two truckloads. Alcala even outdid himself. He had targeted only 100 tons of the special red, black, and organic varieties. But it’s only just past midyear, and he already has sold four times more.

P-Noy won’t dare throw a wet blanket on Alcala. That is, remind that, only last April, he (Alcala) had purchased 800,000 metric tons of rice, several shiploads, from Vietnam. This was for the anticipated supply shortfall in June, ironically right after the dry-season harvest. In fact, although Alcala had imposed on Vietnam his single favored cargo handler, for a cool P1.2-billion overprice, those 800,000 tons still proved insufficient. Retail prices spiked from P32 to P36 per kilo in major cities, an exact repeat of what happened in June 2013. So much so that right upon taking office as Presidential Adviser on Agricultural Modernization and Food Security also last June, Francis Pangilinan ordered another 500,000 tons of Vietnamese rice. And in his State of the Nation the other Monday, P-Noy announced the need to import yet another 500,000 tons from Vietnam. So the total rice import for 2014 alone would be 1.8 million tons, or 4,500 times more than Alcala’s ballyhooed export.

Don’t tell Alcala that his 400-ton export is but 0.022 percent of the 1.8-million-ton import, to cover the 2014 shortfall. He might go berserk. Don’t tell him either that there’s virtually a new agriculture chief — Pangilinan — to whom P-Noy has entrusted the crucial agencies for grains, coconut, fertilizers and pesticides, and irrigation. And don’t remind Alcala that he is facing a graft investigation for that overpriced rice cargo handling of 2014, and two plunder complaints for overpricing by P3.4 billion his rice imports in 2012-2013. For, that would make him insist on staying in office — to hide behind P-Noy’s coattails.

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Readers’ reactions

 To the three-part reprint of Justice Antonio T. Carpio’s lecture, “Historical Facts, Lies, and Rights,” debunking Beijing’s claim over the South China Sea (Gotcha, 4, 6, 8 Aug. 2014):        

Diosdado S. de Leon, @yahoo.com: “China will never listen to other states, unless we take action on where it will hurt most — in its economic pocket. Boycott Chinese products, and geth other Southeast Asian states to join in.”

Paul Noel, Madison, Alabama: “The Philippines is faced with the fact that China will do as it wishes unless stopped by military force. China knows the Philippines has no such force. The USA is unwilling to support those who will not support themselves. Meaning, the Philippines must: (1) Forge alliances with adjacent threatened nations, like Vietnam; and (2) Acquire the military force necessary to defend the islands.

“China expects to face a poorly armed conventional force of World War II design, which it can easily wipe from the sea. So China must not be met with the expected force. It must be met with a new and very unconventional force.

“Develop a Swarm Bot defense in four layers: undersea, sea surface, low atmosphere, and high atmosphere. Possibly a fifth outer space layer. Have two detection networks for full real-time passive monitoring of movements on and under the South China Sea. Match the detection networks with four types of swarm bots: (1) Under sea swarm bots, typically 200 kg units of propulsion and explosives that would magnetically attach to identified ships, without detonation at any time they are in the area and detach as they leave. These could lie passively on the sea bottom for long periods of time and be remotely activated. Ships remotely can be destroyed. (2) Surface swarm bots similar in size to the undersea variety, but approach to vessels is on surface. (3) Swarm bots in low atmosphere up to about 3,000 meters altitude where these would weigh about 10kg to swarm towards aircraft to be sucked into engines/rotors. (4) Swarm bots for high altitude.

“Net result: China would find Philippine waters defended by as simple as fishing boats that it cannot outflank. It also would make the USA willing to join the Philippines in their own defense.”Arturo V. Agudo, @yahoo.com: “The book ‘Hegemon,’ by Steven W. Mosher, is about ‘China’s Plan to Dominate Asia and the World.’ It tells of the empire that dates back to the Ming dynasty, which considered itself the world’s virtual ruler and other races as barbarian. It deemed Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and more to be part of that empire. The book shows China’s continuing attitude and culture of entitlement — that it must try to regain what it lost. Thus, its incursions into Philippine waters.”

Pete Lonzame, @yahoo.com: “I cut and filed your columns for future historical use.”

Ron Bruer, Tinton Falls, New Jersey: “Good articles. Excellent research by Justice Carpio.”

On reviving the Philippine steel industry (Gotcha, 1 Aug. 2014):

Manuel C. Diaz, @yahoo.com: “We must scrap the Iligan electric arc furnace and go for the new technology called Direct Reduction Process, using natural gas as fuel and reducing agent. In the next 20 years natural gas will flood the energy market. Why is the Dept. of Energy not looking into this?”

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