LAGAWE, Ifugao– Highly-placed Ifugao provincial government officials should double time in their work in order to curb the high poverty rate in this upland Cordillera province.
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Ifugao director Valentin Baguidudol said it is so deplorable to see the mounting incidence of poverty in Ifugao’s 11 towns. He noted that national government agencies admitted that the poverty problem is a major source of concern and headache in this part of the region.
“There is no justification whatsoever for our people to suffer from hunger and misery. Ifugao does not deserve to be one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines,” Baguidudol said.
“Our farmers are feeding the Filipino people. Sadly, they are among the ‘poorest of the poor,’” he lamented.
Based on National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) data in 2016, Ifugao registered 40.5% poverty rate incidence mark. Most of the residents are poor. Many are jobless.
“Does this mean that we are already giving up on this problem?” he asked.
In an exclusive interview with the ZigZag Weekly, Baguidudol vowed to do his utmost at the DTI-office as a means of lessening the people’s burden and difficulties.
“The Duterte administration and the DTI-Ifugao office clearly does prioritize providing our people access to fundamental services at all times,” he asserted.
For his part, Baguidudol reiterated his pledge to elevate the Go Negosyo or business centers program to greater heights in the province. These centers offer MSMEs services such as business registration processing, training sessions and seminars and establishment of market linkages.
Baguidudol has championed the cause of business entrepreneurs and promoted the welfare of the masses.
Baguidudol sounded these observations when he spoke at the just-concluded Farmers Forum at the Lagawe Central School gymnasium.
Interestingly, he raised the issue of the province’s dismal state of development and economic deprivation of many, most especially those in the agriculture sector, just a few meters away from Governor Pedro Mayam-o, who also spoke at the well-attended activity.
The Provincial Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Office (PAENRO), spearheaded the conduct of the forum. Farmers from several towns were in attendance. They were welcomed by Acting Provincial Agriculturist Catherine Buenaventura.
On matters pertaining to the poverty problem, some notable personages in the present and previous dispensations are on a high denial mode. During the incumbency of Governor Mayam-o’s predecessor, Atty. Denis Habawel- one of the most intelligent, hardworking governors of the province and an alumnus of the University of the Philippines College of Law, one of his chief lieutenants even blurted at a forum at the session hall of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan: “There is no poverty problem in Ifugao! I take exception to such a claim.” Obviously it backfired. Habawel failed to win the votes of the low-income brackets in the last polls. The masses, who constitute the bulk of the electorate, sided with Mr. Mayam-o, also a lawyer and who is described as the “man of the masses.” For short, the cash-starved residents knew better.
Truth to tell, then and now, in many far-flung villages of Ifugao, abject and worst poverty and hunger can be found.
“There is hope. If only development in the agriculture sector is to be prioritized by those who walk in the corridors of power,” Baguidudol pointed out.
Ifugao’s farmers’ woes: lack of post-harvest facilities, farm-to-market roads and antiquated communal irrigation systems are well-pronounced. Government programs miserably failed to meet the needs of the agriculture sector. The existence of farmers’ organizations and the lives of countless member-tillers and their families or beneficiaries are at stake.
Urgent actions on their problems indeed show how profound is the need to issue a wake-up call for policymakers and how slow the progress of farmers’ lives found little or no reaction or response from provincial government officials.
What attitude might Governor Mayam-o assume vis-à-vis Provincial Director Baguidudol’s timely and piercing observations?
This query clearly demands a coherent answer.
Watching how things and developments continue to unfold before Governor Mayam-o delivers his second State-of-the-Province Address (SOPA) this July is then very difficult to avoid. That will re-develop the capacity to weeding out the poverty problem in the long run.
A year after the first SOPA of Governor Mayam-o and the gravity of the euphoria has sunk in, the question now arises: Why is the Ifugao provincial government still investing poorly in the agriculture sector? **By Anthony A. Araos
