Alvarez to Dar: Show ‘malasakit’ to local farmers, stop ‘unabated importation’

Former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday asked Agriculture Secretary William Dar to show sympathy to the plight of local farmers whose livelihood is being threatened by the “unabated importation” of produce.

“When the present administration campaigned to win the people’s votes, one of its non-negotiables was the promise of ‘malasakit.’ Nasaan ngayon ang malasakit para sa local farmers?” the Davao del Norte lawmaker lamented.

“We ask Department of Agriculture Secretary William Dar to use ‘malasakit’ as part of the standard to be used as we demand that his Department review and recalibrate the country’s importation policies using lens that goes beyond merely looking at short-term benefits for consumers,” he said.

“Let us look at the bigger picture and include, as part of the equation, the hidden costs of unabated importation,” Alvarez said.

“The aim here is to lay the foundation for realizing our long-term collective aspiration – as a people — to defeat hunger; achieve food security and food sovereignty; keep our agricultural industries alive, competitive, and innovative; let local businesses flourish; and allow our people to remain employed, working, and able to afford and provide food for their families and loves ones,” he said.

“To begin with, it is recognized (in the ideal world) that the logic of free markets, at first instance, makes sense. And this necessarily includes unimpeded importation under the assumption that markets are efficient, will force players to find their competitive advantage, and the invisible hand will – somehow – guide all towards a fair and mutually beneficial arrangement. In principle, at least,” he said.

“Real world experience, however, has shown the flaws of unregulated markets and unabated importation, especially for developing countries like ours,” Alvarez said.

“Allowing free market forces to operate unregulated — or with hardly any effective regulation – (supposedly) challenges local markets to remain competitive, reduces prices of products, and makes the same affordable,” he said.

“To an extent, it does, but in a very unfair and unjust way because foreign players enjoy substantial subsidies and incentives from their governments,” he said.

“In other words, the price at which they sell their products to our country is at a price lower than the real market value of that product. How can a poor country like the Philippines compete against that?” Alvarez said.

“We can’t,” he said.

“And this is why we have to reevaluate importation policies being implemented right now, especially given the public health and economic crisis we find ourselves in,” he said.

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Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)