Ready to make an omelet

As one popular saying goes, one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, meaning: It is hard to achieve something important without causing unpleasant effects. This is literally something that perhaps President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) ought to do amid his concerns on the sudden, unusual rise lately in the price of eggs in the markets.

The reported surge in recent days of the price of eggs baffled PBBM. So much so the President instructed Department of Agriculture (DA) senior undersecretary Domingo Panganiban to meet with local egg producers to determine why chicken eggs have been rising even if there is a sufficient supply in the market. The Chief Executive issued the directive during the Cabinet meeting at Malacanang last Tuesday when they tackled ways to boost agricultural production and to keep basic food products at affordable prices and there are supplies available in the markets.

As the concurrent Agriculture Secretary, the rising egg prices added to the President’s immediate concerns while still trying to grapple with the problems of high prices and shortage of onions and sugar.

In our Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast news forum last Wednesday, Senator Cynthia Villar frankly declared – without ifs or buts – there is no reason to justify the steep rise of the price of eggs and onions amply produced here in our country. As the chairman of the Senate committee on food and agriculture, Sen.Villar told us she strongly suspects the reported high prices of eggs might be just “bad publicity” campaign to create a desired situation in the market.

From DA evaluation, the retail price of eggs should just be between P7 to P7.50 per piece, given its farm gate price. However, reports coming out in media claimed a medium-sized egg is being priced as much as P9 each compared to P6.90 per piece last month.

The feisty Senator is ready to also conduct an inquiry into the unexplained rise of egg prices if any of her colleagues would file a Senate Resolution calling for such investigation in aid of legislation. A legislative investigation is conducted after a collegial consensus arrived at plenary sessions to refer the matter to appropriate Senate committees.

But will her Senate committee take action on the videotaped message of PBBM released by the Presidential Communications Office? “We’ll see…I don’t want to be taken shot at again,” Sen.Villar quipped in Tagalog and chortled. Though she did not elaborate, she merely dismisses the bashing she gets from social media picking on some of her off-the-cuff remarks.

Typical Filipino psyche finds the “taray,” or the straightforward talk of Sen.Cynthia Villar as too much brutally frank.

Levity aside, Sen.Villar noted Northern Cebu and Batangas are the biggest egg producers in the Philippines.

In fact, 30 percent of the country’s egg production is more than sufficiently supplied from a “small town” called San Jose in Batangas. In February last year, she recalled, the Upper Chamber approved Senate Bill (SB) 2044 that, among other things, declared the municipality of San Jose in Batangas as the “egg basket of the Philippines.” It lapsed into law in April, 2017 during the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte.

As the principal author of the SB 2044, Sen.Villar cited the report of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that showed 705 metric tons of eggs are produced on a daily basis from San Jose town out of the 49.09,000 metric tons of eggs coming from the entire CALABARZON region. In fact, she disclosed, she was informed by Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines (AGAP) party list Rep.Nicanor Briones there is even up to now an excess supply of eggs in Batangas. She was further informed the excess production of eggs prompted the local producers to process them into powdered eggs and selling them to fast food chains like McDonalds and Jollibee.

Amid the challenges, including the oversupply of eggs in 2009, egg farmers of the town, through the leadership of Batangas Egg Producers Cooperative (BEPCO), developed new products from eggs like liquid and frozen eggs. When the industry was besieged by bird flu infestation that adversely affected the livelihood of the San Jose egg farmers, a collaboration was entered into in 2016 between BEPCO, the University of the Philippines Diliman, and the Department of Science and Technology, under the Collaborative Research and Development to Leverage Philippine Economy Program (CRADLE) to figure out what could be done with the surplus of eggs. This collaboration resulted in the development of egg white powder ideally used for baking cakes and breads and also in making mayonnaise and meringue.

Through the research of Villar’s Senate staff, they found out the concerted efforts of the San Jose egg farmers, their egg industry continued to be the source of increased income and generating thousands of direct and indirect jobs. Categorized as a first class municipality in Batangas, there are more than 342 registered independent poultry in San Jose as of June 2020. They celebrate “World Egg Day” annually during the month of October to spur egg consumption in the country and to enhance the industry’s production and marketing efficiency.

Sen.Villar fears unscrupulous traders might be getting into the egg industry to cook up the same scheme that artificially pushed up to unprecedented levels the price of red and white onions in the country. She, however, vowed to wage her personal advocacy to fight the smugglers, cartels, hoarders and profiteers as behind the perennial problems of our country’s agriculture.

“It’s a constant struggle. But we must not give up (the battle) because it’s about food. We cannot live without food for our survival,” Sen.Villar vowed.

At the height of the onion shortage and its prices shot up, Sen.Villar earned flaks for saying: “I can live without onions.” But obviously, this does not apply to the eggs and the rest of basic food products. She has tabled several legislative bills to break some eggs for omelet.