No EO for bananas

Banana R&D, dev’t council should be thru a law: Duterte

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte proposed before hundreds of banana players on Friday, October 7 that establishing the Banana Industry Development Council and a banana research center will be best done through legislation not an executive order (EO).

“I cannot give the executive order (for the creation of the Banana Industry Development Council). If you are asking some budget or government intervention, legal basis must be there,” he said during the Banana Congress at SMX Convention Center, Lanang, Davao City.

He recommended that the creation of the council and research center be integrated in the proposed Philippine Comprehensive Banana Act of 2017.

He added that an EO is open to doubts in the future especially on financial and budget matters.

“If it is just an executive body, we will have difficulties in that. It has to be a creation of the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines,” Duterte said.

Ferdinand Y. Marañon, president of Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., despite the unsigned EO, lauded the President’s move saying their next move is to lobby it in the Congress.

“We thank the President for responding and approving our entire request for the development of the billion-strong industry, actually though these (resolutions) are not signed, it is already approved in principle. For now the council is just an interim body,” Marañon said adding that it will be composed of private sector and officials from Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Agriculture (DA) and local government units.

The newly-created body, Marañon said, will lobby or draft the law that will formally establish the BIDC and Banana Research Center.

The research center will be established in Davao City.

The private sector, with the help of regional offices of DTI and DA

crafted a six-page draft executive order, which was presented to President Duterte last Friday.

In the draft executive order to create BIDC, it cited that the council “shall promote the development and growth of the banana industry by improving production, productivity, quality, and expanding the manufacturing, processing, and/ or export of banana and banana products.”

Agriculture secretary, Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol, in a separate interview told reporters that the council is a giant step towards the development of the industry. ASP (For full story visit www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/)