Entrepreneurial Farmer

Ambrosio R. Villorente

Illegitimate Children

In Aklan Province, children born from January to August 2010, reached 5,899 of which 2,694 or 48 percent are illegitimate while 3,205 or 52 percent are legitimate. Mr. Blas Solidum, provincial director of the National Census and Statistics reported. This is a serious community problem, the morality of our people that must be addressed jointly by the church and local government units.

Rev. Father Victor Salido of St. Joseph Spouse of Mary Parish, Banga is campaigning to legitimize the live-in partners living like husband and wife. In Makato, Mayor Ramon Legaspi has that "Kasalan ng Bayan" project.

How about the other towns? This trend of producing illegitimate children will continue if the community did nothing to halt it. The LGUs with the church should lead in this. The tri-media can as well help.

NW Fishery Code

The Aklan Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) is scheduled to conduct a joint committee hearing on the "Revised Municipal Fishery Code of the Municipality of New Washington" on Monday, Feb. 7. Will the joint committee on agriculture, laws, and ordinances recommend this code for approval by the SP in its regular session?

A group of interested persons has come up with a position paper strongly objecting against some controversial provisions of the said New Washington Fishery Code. If the committee members in their joint committee favorably consider the position paper submitted, there is no way at all this time that the said code will be recommended for approval. The best they can do is return the said code to SB New Washington for fine tuning, conduct a public hearing, and remove the provisions objected to and conforms with the National Fishery Code and the Fishery Administrative Order.

Retirement Plan

The SOPA of Gov. Carlito S. Marquez presented to Aklan SP members, government officials in Aklan and guests revealed the amount of P1.016 million was spent for 2,032 for qualified senior citizen beneficiaries. "In this year’s budget are allocations for death aid for our senior citizens and a monthly honorarium for the officers of the Provincial Federation. We also provide a medical assistance of P1,000 for any senior citizen confined at DRSTMH," announced Gov. Marquez.
　

Suggestions

Perhaps the budget allocation for this death aid is not enough annually. If this column is allowed to suggest, the office that implements this death aid project may come up with an Annual Project Plan to follow which will show among others the objects of the project, number of target beneficiaries, order of priorities of availment, the requirements to avail of the aid, and the process to follow.

Agriculture

Reading Governor Marquez’ 2011 SOPA, I feel delighted for he devoted six pages out of his 36 pages report or 17 percent of his report. He reported his accomplish-ments on rice, fish, vegetable, mango, abaca, cattle, swine, goat, coffee, irrigation, and other projects in support to agriculture.

Perhaps, Gov. Marquez, with the 17 LGUs, can include agricultural extension in agriculture programs. Of all the factors of production, men are the most important. The quality and quantity of products produced are dependent upon the men producing it.

In Philippine agriculture, including Aklan, our farmers are aging. They suffer sickness like diabetes and arthritis. Can they withstand climate change doing chores in the farms?

Maybe, our LGUs can come up with a program to entice the young men and women who are the heirs apparent of the land to prepare themselves to engage in farming. One way is to provide more scholarships for them in agriculture, fisheries, and allied courses like agricultural engineering and plant breeding. /MP