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Question: Can you name the most important bank in Asia?
(HINT: Without it, many Asians would go hungry and
centuries of Asian heritage and culture would be lost.)
Answer:
The only one of its kind in the world, it’s based at Los
Baños, Laguna, about 60 kilometers south of Manila, the
International Rice Genebank is home to more than 80,000
rice varieties in Asia and the world, making it one of
the last lines of defense between Asia and possible
famine.
The
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) posed the
question and answered it in an invitation it e-mailed to
journalists to attend the “historic dedication of this
vitally important facility,” referring to the world’s
biggest and different kind of bank, on March 12, 2007.
And
IRRI’s Chris Quintana, was right. The fate of the
world’s rice-eating population including Filipinos, lies
on a 250-hectare land, which is home to IRRI and its
rice gene- bank. The bank, now named after its founder,
Dr. Te-Tzu Chang, who died last year, has a huge bank
vault that contains not cash and valuable documents but
a collection of rice varieties from all over the world.
When a rice disease hits one country, IRRI is on the
alert and ready to determine the causes of such
outbreak. Its banks files not index cards but grains of
every rice variety from all over the world.
The
Philippines takes pride in playing host to IRRI and
having the Philippine Rice Research Institute as its
reliable partners in rice production. But ironically,
Filipinos had to rely on imported rice from Thailand and
Vietnam for a more stable supply. The question asked is
why. Is it because the Philippines does not have enough
farm lands to produce enough rice for its population
that grows over two percent a year?
It could
be the lack of government incentives to grow rice—it
provides P25 billion for rice importation and earmarks
only a meager P400 million subsidy to farmers who use
hybrid seeds to produce more than 300 cavans per hectare
given the necessary but costly inputs to produce that
much. Apparently, government policymakers ignore the big
savings the Philippines would generate in foreign
exchange if every farmer harvests at least 200 cavans
per hectare.
*****
Ask the
officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), led by chairman Fe Barin, on their reactions to
the perception of the Philippines as the most corrupt
country in Asia and they might say the SEC is an
exception because registering a corporation with the
agency is easy.
For
faster processing, one can buy a set of express lane
forms for P400, fill them up, complete the requirements
and file these documents with the company registration
and monitoring department. SEC director Benito A.
Cataran, who heads said department, assures them their
certificates of registration will be released in two
days or perhaps three days.
Foreign
investors should know that the SEC, along with other
government agencies, issues official government receipts
in collecting fees. This would give them an idea how
much of their registration expenses goes to their
liaison personnel, lawyers or Philippine
representatives.
Avoid
the trap by making inquiries before investing. Yeas ago,
executives of Nomura Securities of Japan went to the
late chairman Rosario N. Lopez, when the Japanese
company wanted to invest here. It did not hire a lawyer
or pay anybody just to see her.
A
Filipino businesswoman paid a middleman P30,000 to
incorporate a venture. She was told part of the money
would go to some SEC personnel to speed up the release
of her company’s registration certificate. The man
disappeared together with her money. |
