“Sumilao is a town that needs investments. Right now, its main crop is corn but the corn business is controlled by the compradors.”
by Ducky Paredes
As of September 4, 2007, there were 135 cities, 1,493 municipalities and 82 provinces in the Philippines. In most of the 1.628 towns (the total number of cities and municipalities) there really isn’t much to do.
Each day is much like yesterday, except for the feast of the Patron Saint, when there is a fiesta, the occasional storm and, perhaps, elections.
There is, in most of them, no work to be had or any sort of future for the young man starting out in life. Of course, those young men and women whose families have had it made for centuries because they own large tracts of land or the rice mill or the largest trading house for agricultural products will not have this problem. They are the ones who have it made.
What the rest of the population – the 99% — need is something that will provide some kind of a future for the town, that will give them some kind of a future. I have been to more sleepy towns than I can remember where nothing of note ever happens. I have never been to Sumilao in Bukidnon, that 4th class municipality with a population of 17,958, which had been so much in the news last year. The classification 4th Class puts it below the median – 6th class is the lowest. Sumilao would have an income of over P20 million but under P30 million.
Considering the payroll of the municipality, there would be very little left for the improvement of the streets of the town, much less for any other projects.
Sumilao is a town that needs investments. Right now, its main crop is corn but the corn business is controlled by the compradores – those who have been financing farmers for decades and extracting usurious interest for the farm inputs that they lend to framers to assure that they can corner the corn harvest for themselves. Farmers under this situation will never be able to get out of the hole that the compradors dig for them with their usurious lendings, overpriced farm inputs and cheap farm gate prices.
The P2.4 billion investment of San Miguel Foods, Inc (SMFI) could make a difference in Sumilao and the whole province of Bukidnon, if it is allowed. Right now, despite a legitimate purchase by SMFI of its plant site, Malacanang has declared that this plant site be taken from SMFI and given to just over a hundred marchers who walked from Mindanao to Manila asking for that piece of land for themselves.
Gloria Arroyo may have appeased the Sumilao marchers and the Catholic Church that mindlessly supported them, but she may have also sounded the death knoll for Sumilao town and any bright future it could have had.
SMFI’s agro-industrial project would have given employment to at least 2,400 workers.
The SMFI facility will require eventually 400 personnel with an estimated payroll cost of P50 million per year.
The agro-industrial complex, with state-of-the-art piggery farm, feed mill and post-harvest facility will result in better corn prices for farmers, thus, assuring them higher incomes.
SMFI would have displaced the compradores — traders and middlemen –who have long exploited low farm-gate prices during harvest periods, besides overpricing farm inputs and charging usurious rates on farmers; debts
SMFI’s presence in Sumilao will allow the farmers to enjoy increased farm productivity. By partnering with SMFI, farmers would gain access to financing facilities, farm technology and planting materials, which the company can ably provide.
SMFI would increase the tax revenues of Sumilao and the provincial government, thus, improving the delivery of basic services. Sumilao’s and Bukidnon’s tax revenues could increase as much as 30-fold once SMFI becomes fully operational.
It is estimated that SMFI will pay P98 million in taxes annually which will help improve the delivery of basic services including education, health and housing for the people of Sumilao and Bukidnon.
To appease the marchers and the bishops (and, incidentally, the compradors of Sumilao) this is the import of what Gloria Arroyo has delivered to the rest of the voters in Sumilao and Bukidnon. That is what her buckling to the marchers and bishops means to the affected town.
What we need in our 1,628 towns are investors. Let us not place hurdles in their way. We even ought to help those who would invest in meaningful projects that directly affect the economy of our mostly sleepy towns, where nothing of note ever happens.
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There is a way for even former presidents (barred from seeking “any reelection” under our Constitution) can become President again. There is no hindrance to anyone – even former presidents and vice presidents – standing for election as vice president.
Thus, all that an Erap or an FVR needs to do is to find someone who will run for President who will get out of the way once they have been proclaimed and sworn in as President and Vice President. Then, one can be President again and again and again. And this would be perfectly legal under our Constitution.
The way I would like the Constitution to read would be that anyone who has served as President – even for less than a minute – should be barred from becoming president again or even for aspiring to any other elected or appointive position.
This way, we would be asking anyone who became President to give his one moment in time the very best effort that he is capable of because he has only one chance at being President and it will not ever come again.
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Oops! Senator Loren Legarda was born January 28, 1960. That would make her only 48 on her next birthday. I included her among the 60-year old presidentiables. My mistake and my apologies. She certainly doesn’t look sixty but then a lot of sixty-year olds do pass for much younger.
Loren has done so much in terms of her personal accomplishments for the country that it seems as though she was in the public service longer than she actually has been. Besides, how could I have thought her to be 60, when her father Tony is only in his early 70s and, incidentally, still plays a mean game of golf?
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hvp (01.06.07)
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