Entrepreneurial Farmer

Ambrosio R. Villorente

Farmers Cry For Typhoon Ramon

Ramon passed by Aklan on October 12 and PAGASA raised Signal No. 1 in Panay Island including Aklan. Due to heavy rains, schools held no classes. Some businessmen and office workers just stayed home.

On the other hand, farmers went out to the field to protect and save their crops. Good for livestock farmers raising swine and poultry because their projects are placed in buildings with strong materials to withstand strong wind and deep floods. For rice farmers, only God can help them for their rice crops are immobile and vulnerable to strong wind and deep flood.

Those fruit farmers can just pray to Almighty God so that fruit trees like Lanzones, Rambutan, bananas, Durian, and even coconut trees are not toppled by forceful wind.
The fish farmers raising cultured fish like prawn, tilapia, and milkfish are also exposed to inclement weather while visiting their fishfarms to institute remedial measures to protect their dikes from erosion and prevent the overflow of stocks.

Will the consumers realize the difficulties our food producers undergo to produce food for the Filipinos? If they will only sympathize the losses and hardships farmers undergo, they should pay the prices of foods without too much bargaining. Farmers deserve to gain from their difficulties in producing our food.

A farm expert said: "When a farmer produces bumper crop, everybody is happy. When a farmer incurs crop losses and damages, he cries alone". Are you capable to sympathize with the farmer by paying premium price to his produce? If not and the intolerable limit is reached, the farmer might see the red light and therefore stops farming. He will vanish in the strong wind. Who will produce our food?

Will Arroyo Do A Shinawatra?

With the possibility raised that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband could be in jail on nonbailable charges by Christmas, some lawmakers are wondering whether the couple will do "a Thaksin" or "an Erap".

"They may likely do a Thaksin," said Isabela Rep. Giorgidi Aggabao.

"The possibility [of seeking political asylum] is strong considering that the charges against them, ranging from plunder to electoral sabotage, are nonbailable offenses," he said.

Aggabao was referring to Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, who went into exile in 2009 after being convicted under his successor’s administration.

To gain political asylum, Arroyo will claim that she and her family are victims of "political persecution," Aggabao said.

"The United States will be a safe bet [for asylum]. Surely they have friends at the US State Department developed over the years she was President," he said.

But Rep. Rodel Batocabe of the partylist group Ako Bicol reckoned that Arroyo would tread the path taken by ousted President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, who faced charges even if it meant being detained for years.

Estrada, who was deposed in 2001, was eventually convicted of plunder and immediately pardoned by Arroyo. He ranked second in the 2010 presidential election.

"I don’t think they will seek asylum. As former President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is cognizant of her place in history," Batocabe said. (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) /MP