Part Three
SOMETIMES change may not be good.
It could be in the case of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), as the agency implemented the Yolanda Recovery and Rehabilitation Program (YRRP) for three years.
“Changes in policies, in priorities and in leadership [affected] the overall performance of the agency,” PCA Deputy Administrator for Operations Roel M. Rosales told the BusinessMirror.
Rosales recalled there were a lot of changes in terms of leadership in the course of the YRRP implementation.
“There was [former Agriculture Secretary Proceso J.] Alcala first,” he said. “But even in the time of Alcala, the implementation of YRRP was distorted. Apparently, President [Benigno S.] Aquino was not pleased with the way we were working the debris management [component of the YRRP].”
Rosales explained the agency initially planned to cut trees at the farm level. However, Aquino was concerned with having an ugly view of scattered dead coconut trees along the main thoroughfares of the devastated areas, Rosales added.
He said Aquino then chose to appoint then-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) National Director Asis Perez as lead implementer of the YRRP.
“The priority of Asis then was to clear the roadside from dead coconut trees. So, the debris management focused on that,” Rosales said. “However, it was the clearing of trees at the farm level that was [left out].”
Going nuts
ASIS was replaced yet again by Sen. Francis N. Pangilinan, Rosales said. But Pangilinan’s focus back then was addressing the cocolisap, or coconut scale insect infestation, in the country, he added.
“Despite our effort to call [Pangilinan’s] attention to the YRRP, he did not prioritize it as soon as possible,” Rosales said. “It was only around September or October that he [Pangilinan] realized that there was something wrong and that the Yolanda was the bigger issue. So, it was the only time they conceptualized a way on how to fast-track the cutting of the targeted coconut trees.”
Of the 14 million devastated coconut trees, only 10 million would be cut while the rest would be left to rot on nature’s time. According to Rosales, these trees were in the mountains, “in the hinterlands.”
“So it was neither economically viable nor logistically possible to move them.”
On top of the number of trees to be cut, the PCA changed the way of cutting them. “Before, we were preparing it by way of lumber quality,” Rosales said. “Ita-tabla na lang, ’yung basic cutting na lang, tapos ibinibenta na lang sa mga [traders] [They would be cut for lumber, only basic cutting and sold to traders].”
The PCA completed the cutting of coconut trees some time in May last year. It was also only in the latter half of 2015 that the agency focused in replanting coconut trees and intercropping.
Weathering storms
WHEN Pangilinan stepped down from his post as presidential assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization to run for the Senate, his assistant secretary Edel Guiza took his place as YRRP lead implementer.
However, at the same time in December last year, PCA Administrator Romulo Arancon resigned. A new officer in charge for the PCA was assigned in January.
It was during this time that the YRRP’s implementation also got snagged in logistical problems, according to Rosales.
“There was a scarcity in planting materials. It was quite ironic that there are coconut trees in Northern Samar but, unfortunately, these were in quarantined areas for the Kadang-kadang [coconut festival], so you cannot bring them in,” Rosales said. “What happened then [we had] to utilize what is in the Leyte and Southern Leyte areas and then import from Mindanao. So it was a little bit cumbersome because we had to resort to getting it from as far as south as Zamboanga.”
He describes the implementation of the fertilizer component of the YRRP as “dismal”. Rosales said the PCA outsourced the bidding process for the fertilization, tapping the services of the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).
“It is more than a year since we tapped the PITC for the activity of the bidding and up to now there has been no company awarded for the program,” Rosales said. “So, it’s like that it defeated the purpose of good intention, of having transparency in the bidding at that time.”
Untangling knots
THE PCA tapped the services of the PITC some time in May last year to facilitate the bidding process for the P100-million fertilization program of the YRRP.
Rosales said to date the PITC has not awarded anyone yet for the said program. “Sooner or later, they should award that already,” he said.
Rosales said, in the long run, the YRRP would face problems in procuring seeds if Manila-based companies are the only ones joining the bidding for the program’s intercropping component. He added that some of the seeds put into bidding are not really available in the locality of the Yolanda-affected areas.
Rosales said they are advising potential bidders to be introspective and “they just procure the ones that the farmers can really use.”
Rosales said the PCA sought to meet with the PITC to clarify the status of the procurement for the YRRP’s fertilization component. The PCA-PITC bidding deal is nearing its two years and there has been no update regarding the matter.
“We even pay the PITC an agency fee of a good amount of more than 10 million to get that thing done,” Rosales said, adding the PITC was able to award some of the requirements to companies. “This is more than 50 percent of the requirement of what we have asked the PITC.”
He said the PCA expects the PITC to say they are not the ones to blame for the delay in the YRRP implementation and part of the blame is on the PCA.
“We just want to untangle what went wrong.”
Image credits: AP/Malacañang Photo Bureau, Ryan Lim