EDITORIAL - Cheating farmers

People from around Southeast Asia used to come to the Philippines to study agriculture, including rice production.

Today the country has been left behind by its neighbors notably Vietnam and Thailand in terms of agricultural output.

One of the reasons is the persistent lack of farm support services, including post-harvest facilities, cold storage and farm-to-market roads. And among the reasons for this lack has to be corruption.

Last Thursday, criminal charges were filed with the Office of the Ombudsman against six engineers of the Department of Public Works and Highways and several private contractors in connection with eight farm-to-market road projects in Davao Occidental costing P94 million that turned out to be ghost or non-existent.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. led the filing of the complaints for graft, malversation through falsification of public documents, grave misconduct and serious dishonesty against DPWH-Davao Occidental engineers Michael Awa, Jafel Faunillan, Rodrigo Larete, Joel Lumogdang, Czar Ryan Ubungen and Harold John Villaver.

Representatives of eight private contractors were also included in the complaints, which could lead to their detention without bail for the malversation charge.

To claim payments for unfinished or ghost projects, the respondents allegedly submitted falsified statements of work accomplishments, project status reports, certificates of payment and disbursement vouchers.

The Department of Agriculture is still investigating the possible collusion of DA regional officials with crooked DPWH employees and private contractors.

It’s good to see suspected crooks facing criminal charges. The question is how pervasive the corruption has become in the agriculture sector.

In a country that’s still largely agricultural, it’s a disgrace that farmers and fisherfolk remain among the most impoverished in the population. Because of the meager earnings, youths no longer want to work in farms or as fishermen. This growing lack of workers in the agriculture sector is threatening the nation’s food security.

President Marcos, who appointed himself as the first agriculture secretary of his administration, identified the problems and promised reforms, notably the provision of cold storage and post-harvest facilities.

He also promised reforms in the supply chain to drastically reduce the number of middlemen, to raise the earnings of farmers while pulling down retail prices.

The kindest thing that can be said of the promised reforms is that they are a work in progress. In the meantime, the government can pursue more crooks who have pocketed public funds at the expense of farmers.