After more than two years of taking the helm of the agriculture department, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appointed Francisco Tiu-Laurel as its new secretary.
However, peasant and fisherfolk groups were not appeased by the appointment of Tiu-Laurel to the Department of Agriculture (DA).
“Ang ipinalit ni Marcos Jr ay katulad din niya — walang background sa agrikultura at walang record sa pagsisilbi sa mamamayan,” said Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas chairperson Danilo Ramos in a statement.
Tiu-Laurel came from a family who owned the global food conglomerate Frabelle. He is the son of Francis and Bella Tiu-Laurel, who started the Frabelle Fishing Corporation in 1966 and has since established assets of Frabelle Properties in 1993.
KMP noted that it is public knowledge that Tiu-Laurel is a campaign donor and his appointment is an obvious payback from Marcos Jr.
According to a report from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Tiu Laure was among the six of Marcos Jr.’s election donors during his 2022 campaign donating a whopping P30 million in cash to his political party Partido Federal ng Pilipinas.
“Nothing in his background and credentials states public service and public interest. Placing him as the agriculture secretary speaks volumes when it comes to conflict of interest. He represents big business and the elite. How can we expect him to know the situation of small farmers and fisherfolk who are among the poorest of the poor?” Ramos quipped.
Tiu-Laurel is also the president of Frabelle Group of Companies which operates in various businesses such as deep-sea fishing, aquaculture, food manufacturing, importation, trading and exporting, as well as land development given his business ties in reclamation as the President of Bacoor Seafront Corp. and Diamond Export Corp.
On the other hand, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) prodded the newly appointed agriculture secretary to “do away” with liberalization policies that allow the importation of agri-fisheries products at the expense of local food producers.
PAMALAKAYA has monitored more than 200,000 metric tons of various pelagic fish imported from other countries like China and Taiwan from 2018 to 2022, stressing that food importation is an insult to the millions of Filipinos in the fishing sector.
Fernando Hicap, national chairperson of PMALAKAYA, further urged Tiu-Laurel to provide economic assistance in times of natural calamities, especially typhoons, fish kill, and red tide; give sufficient production subsidies amid the non-stop oil price hikes and inflation; ensure that Filipino fishers can utilize the country’s marine and aquatic resources within the territorial and traditional fishing grounds; and prohibit all forms of conversion and reclamation of coastal communities.
Given the current farm gate value of round scad (galunggong), which dropped from P70-80 per kilogram (kg) to P50-60 per kilogram posed drastic impacts on both local fisherfolks and consumers which affected their daily livelihood.
According to Hicap, all these are doable measures to ensure that the country will not fall short on fisheries production to attain food sufficiency.
But with Tiu-Laurel’s mandate for DA, farmers and fisherfolk sectors were alarmed and concerned about food security and sufficiency which are seemingly a business for the new agriculture secretary.
“We are not convinced that he has divested his interests in his family’s companies and businesses. Now more than ever, we are alarmed and concerned that he will only push for the further liberalization of the domestic agriculture and most especially, the fisheries sector,” Ramos said.
PAMALAKAYA seconded by giving a standing order to the Tiu-Laurel to strengthen local food production by renouncing liberalization policies of importation of agricultural and fisheries products.
“All it takes is political will from the new agri chief to stand alongside the fisherfolk and farmers for significant and genuine reforms in the agriculture and fisheries,” Hicap affirmed.
