By Danilo P. Padua, PhD

The year 2017 had ensconced the Philippines in the international consciousness even more, thanks to our president with his acerbic tongue, defiant stance against some of the world’s leaders, and ambivalent stance on many issues. Add to that the various calamities that hit the country, the drug war spiked by the high profile detention of a senator and spiced by allegations of EJK, attempts to muzzle the head of the Philippine Supreme Court, etc. There are of course many positives that happened. This piece though will be devoted to wishes for 2018.
Agriculture
Our economy is still dependent in large part, on agriculture. While this sector somehow is growing, albeit on a crawl, it is not to a desired level. Last week, this corner presented the analysis of agriculture performance in 5 big ASEAN countries by a respected Filipino economist. He presented the dismal performance of the country through the years, vis-à-vis the other 4 countries analyzed where their agriculture is literally soaring due to good planning and proper prioritization as well as strategic shifting of resources, including crop diversification. Imagine the country as the only one among the five nations with negative trade balance in agriculture! And we are still a largely agriculture-based economy.
Our wish therefore is for the country to earnestly adopt some of the relevant strategies done by those 4 countries. These include drastically reducing our overdependence on rice and corn production. That is, diversify or shift to other cash crops with the intention of increasing land productivity, increasing farmers’ income and targeting the export market. Since most of our areas are mountainous and hilly, fruit tree growing should be intensified not only for profit and nutrition purposes but also for environmental protection.
There should be more budgetary support for basic research that could prop up the agriculture industries.
For Cordillera, the wish is for heirloom rice farmers to be properly assisted, especially in marketing – both for local consumption and export. Organic agriculture is more suited to cooler temperatures like in this region thus, it should have more support from the government, and it should expand more.
Manufacturing/Industry
If we want to industrialize it is a must to have a very strong manufacturing sector. This is something that we sorely lack. We just sell what others are manufacturing. That’s why, we have proliferation of outrageously big malls that are incongruous with the economy of some towns where they are. The malls are killing small entrepreneurs, concentrating money to the already filthy rich individuals.
Our wish then is for concerned government agencies like DOST, DTI, DBM, Patent office, Congress, etc to provide the necessary conditions, unconditional support, and incentives to the inventors and manufacturers. That is also saying that pressures from industrialized countries to stop local manufacturing initiatives should be parried with full force. The glitter of money should have no place in such struggle.
Dr. Dy, the economist, recognized that even agri-manufacturing is underdeveloped in the country.
It is a wish that those owners of big malls and other rich people should really venture into manufacturing as their way of giving back to the people whom they have filched to amass their stupendous wealth. Manufacturing should provide more lasting and steady job for a lot of our impoverished citizens. Do we have our own car brand? or motorcycle brand, or local TV trademark, even coffee makers, etc? It’s mind boggling that we can only make haphazardly done tooth picks that injures the gums!
Agri-tourism
Agri-tourism and its kindred, eco-tourism, should be the way to go, especially in the Cordillera region. CAR is an ideal place to showcase agri-eco-tourism. There are now some establishments catering to this in the region but they are still puny in relation to CAR’s potential. The wish therefore is for the Dept. of Tourism to proactively push for such kind of tourist attractions. The private sector should also be given the proper incentives to develop the sector. The build, build, build program of the government should provide a lift for this. A number of agri-eco-tourism facilities are now in place in other areas such as in Magalang, Pampanga as well as in Bicol region. We, in the Cordillera should capitalize on this booming tourism sector.
Others
I planned to write more wishes on education, traffic, road repairs, environment, disaster risk reduction, firecrackers, teen pregnancy, nutrition, and even spirituality but unable to do it at the moment. Include to the list the distorted examples that our national leaders are flaunting to the public with impunity. Maybe these could be tackled gradually in the future.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL! May 2018 bring more smiles to our lips.**