Press Release
April 10, 2007

War vs poverty should begin in the farms Angara

MUNOZ, Nueva Ecija --Sen. Edgardo J. Angara said yesterday that the fight against poverty should start in the farms, and that farm productivity in the Philippines would improve only through the adoption of modern technology and the production of competent technical manpower.

Angara, a former agriculture secretary, considered it ironic that while the agriculture sector contributes a fifth of the countrys gross domestic product and employs one-half of the total work force, agriculture is also home to the countrys poorest.

Poverty has a rural face. If we are to fight poverty, we must focus on the rural people who survive on the fruits of the soil and the bounties of the sea, Angara told the graduating students of the Central Luzon State University here.

He pointed out that the Philippines is still primarily and agricultural country, so that lifting the standards of rural Philippines means raising the quality of life of all Filipinos.

Angara lamented that agriculture has not yet fed the people adequately and inexpensively compared to other Southeast Asian nations. He blamed inadequate infrastructure and failure to use modern technology as the main reasons for this ironic condition.

We cannot modernize agriculture without sustained and systematic adaptation and transfer of technology, Angara stressed.

He said that to realize this, the country must build the basic science education and technology transfer mechanisms, and provide continuing training and skills development for farmers and fisherfolk.

He cited CLSU, the countrys biggest agricultural institution, for providing training and skills development for young farmers and fishermen. At the same time, he called for the upgrading of science education, research and development to make Philippine agriculture competitive globally.

Our country has the lowest number of scientists and engineers engaged in research and development in the ASEAN. For every Master of Science (MS) graduate in engineering that we produce, Vietnam produces 6, Thailand, 25 and Singapore, 200, he said.

Angara called for an increase in funding for research and development (R&D) to help the countrys readiness for innovation. He said that the countrys competitiveness has slipped steadily and consistently through the years because of neglect of R&D.

The Philippines lags behind its neighboring countries in terms of the share of R&D to the total GDP, with only 0.11 percent in 2002, compared to Japan's 3.12 percent and Singapore's 2.15 percent, he noted.

He explained that modern technology should be applied for Philippine products to meet international demand and the required standards, as well as produce the environment conducive for growth and development.

Angara has authored a law calling for the creation of the joint Congressional Commission on Math, Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) to study how to enhance Philippine competitiveness in these areas. He said that the future of the Philippines lies in enticing more students to take up science and technology courses and in investing more for R&D.

He cited a report of the labor department stating that in the next five years, about 4 million jobs would be generated by agribusiness, electronics, cyber services, mining, aviation and construction industries. He said that 2 million of the 4 million technical jobs would be generated by agribusiness alone.

But while 4 million jobs would be available in these fields, the countrys educational system could produce only 2.7 million in the next five years, Angara said, in stressing the need to align college courses to the job market.

He recently scored the Department of Education for saying that 700,000 of the 1.3 million who took the National Career Assessment Examination were unfit to enter college. He said this was demeaning to those who are taking technical courses. He pointed out that there is bigger job opportunity for technical courses than those taking up four-year courses not related to science and technology.

Angara also told the new graduates of CLSU that rural development also calls for the building of more support infrastructures.

The Filipino farmer is handicapped by the lack of basic support facilities such as farm-to-market roads, irrigation networks, post-harvest facilities, fishing ports, ice plants and cold storage, and access to credit. This lack has prevented agriculture from growing sufficiently to meet the demands of our burgeoning population and the world market, Angara noted.

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