President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. still has two years to act on the most urgent threat facing Philippine agriculture: the flood of imported food that is wiping out local farmers one sector at a time.
This was the assessment of former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol, who stressed that the President can make that call immediately without waiting for legislation or bureaucratic process.
Piñol made the statement in an interview on DZRH News program The Situation Report on September 9, offering a measured but pointed assessment of what the administration can still accomplish before its term ends.
The former Agriculture chief said the issuance of an arrest warrant for former Speaker Martin Romualdez was a genuine positive development for the President’s image, suggesting that Marcos is willing to pursue accountability even against family allies and that the public reaction has been encouraging.
“Itong nangyari kay former Speaker Martin Romualdez, I think was a positive development in as far as the President’s image is concerned. Somehow yung mga tao ngayon sabi, ‘Totoo pala, tuloy lang,'” Piñol said.
But Piñol said the bigger and more urgent issue of the government’s food import policy requires the same decisiveness, and the President has no excuse for further delay.
The former Agriculture chief said the rice, pork, and other agricultural sectors are all being damaged by the same pattern: imported goods flood the market, local prices collapse, farmers quit, and the country loses another pillar of its food production capacity.
“Kailangan talagang tignan nila yung pagbaha ng mga imported na pagkain sapagkat pinapatay natin yung ating mga local farmers. Kasimple lang naman ‘yun na he can do it tomorrow,” Piñol said.
He said the next two years are sufficient to reverse course, but only if the President acts now rather than allowing the remaining time to be consumed by political conflicts that serve no one except those fighting them.
