Patience and trust

The courtesies of a 100 days honeymoon tradition for a new Philippine president are still evidently in play with the business sector, especially when it comes to giving public statements. Even in chat groups, the mood is polite while the clock is ticking and everyone waits for the announcement of more substantial plans.

The State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Marcos last week sorely lacked details on a host of issues that the country faces as a result of extraordinary developments affecting the global economic landscape.

Taming inflation in the next few months will be especially important with oil, coal, fertilizers, and grain prices still at elevated levels, and with the effects of recent wage and transportation hikes becoming real threats to a second round of higher food prices.

As it stands now, chicken and pork prices have not returned to their pre-pandemic levels even with the extension of emergency import interventions. The pandesal is shrinking in size as imported wheat continues to be expensive.

At best, Filipinos can be assured of food security, i.e., there is enough food available in the market even if these cost more. It is the household budget, though, that is increasingly being stressed and stretched out to the point where a new cycle of wage hikes may have to be seriously considered.

Inflation is a state enemy that has, much like the pandemic virus, morphed in its demeanor. As the World Bank has warned, the era of low inflation that we knew in the last three decades may be coming to an end, and this new inflation now amongst us may not be too easy to deal with.

Still, this new government should try to find new and better counterpunches against inflation, something that may not easily go away, and fast enough even with successive interest rate hikes, much like what the US Fed is now brandishing against its runaway food prices.

Medium and long-term plan In the next two months, what Marcos will actually do concurrent as agriculture chief will give us a better glimpse of what he really is capable of doing.

So far, the slip of a promise of a P20 per kilo rice during Marcos’ campaign trail has not been mentioned. The Masagana rice program and the return of the old powers of the National Food Authority have been cited at various points of his first month as President, but only the re-establishment of Kadiwa Centers was spoken of during Marcos’ SONA as a means of bringing low-priced foods to consumers.

The broad strokes of the President’s promise for agricultural resurgence in the medium and long-term for the country rests on the delivery of technical and financial assistance to farmers, with the end view of raising productivity in the coming planting seasons.

Marcos talks about “reconstructing” the agricultural value chain to bring grassroots stakeholders, such as farmers, fishers, and livestock and poultry growers closer to the consumers, as well as modernizing the modes of agricultural production to bring down food cost while raising earnings.

A more detailed plan is being drawn up by his people in the DA, and should be ready within the next few weeks. The President has been reported to be holding regular weekly meeting with key department officials even when he was recuperating from a COVID-19 infection.

How this plan will adhere with the one that former agriculture secretary William Dar had drawn up for the previous administration and with that of Marcos’ father through former agriculture minister Bong Tanco, or with the food network system that his mother, Imelda, adopted in the ‘70s and ‘80s, will be interesting work.

Marcos continues to demonstrate some hang-ups to what his father and mother had initiated during the early years of the Martial Law regime despite lessons that pointed to weaknesses in implementation and overall structure, as well as latent corruption vulnerabilities, and which eventually led to program failures.

Immediate response

For the short term, Marcos plans to bulk buy fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and other farm inputs that will give farmers some respite from cost escalations in recent months resulting from the Ukraine-Russian war.

How much this initiative will cost the government and where the money will come from, especially since it will have to be spent during the remainder of the year, is something to watch out for. More importantly, if the funds are secured, how quickly can the funds be disbursed and how fast all these interventions can translate to lower food prices will reflect on the President’s ability.

Even if Marcos has managed to ascend to power on a supermajority voter base and has the support of both Houses of Congress, the bureaucratic machinery is something that cannot be hurried to cough up the needed funds in time to even reach farmers for the next planting season.

Marcos has made his intentions clear about issuing an executive order imposing a one-year moratorium on the payment of land amortizations and interest payments for farmers as specified in the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act of 2020. While issuing an EO is within the scope of his powers as President, how this will actually translate to lower food prices and lowered inflation have to be clearly spelled out.

Perhaps the new President sees something that we’re missing out, and we certainly hope this is so. In his first 100 days, we have vowed to give him a chance to prove himself. We’re extending all the patience we can muster, liberally sprinkled with trust.

Facebook and Twitter

We are actively using two social networking websites to reach out more often and even interact with and engage our readers, friends and colleagues in the various areas of interest that I tackle in my column. Please like us on www.facebook.com/ReyGamboa and follow us on www. twitter.com/ReyGamboa.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at reydgamboa@yahoo.com. For a compilation of previous articles, visit