Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Tuesday, January 10 questioned the plan of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to import 22,000 metric of onions saying this would only hurt Filipino farmers.
The DA, headed by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. had earlier bared its plan to import onions to address the spiraling prices of onions in the market.
But the Senate chief fiscalizer sees a problem in the plan, saying it would provide a major setback to local Filipino farmers.
“We should not fall into that trap. The move could negatively affect the income and business of local farmers who are about to harvest locally-produced onions,’’ Pimentel said.
“The DA should no longer import onion. There is no need to import onions since it’s harvest season already,” he stressed.
He explained: “There is always a time lag. If we authorize importation now, the actual importation will happen maybe weeks or months later. That will coincide with the availability of locally produced onions."
“It looks like we allowed the hoarders, the illegal importers and the price fixers to profit from the peak season of Christmas. Now, we will bite into the trap and if we now agree with the importation of onions, we will now be affecting the local farmers,” he stressed.
Pimentel, the PDP-Laban chairman, questioned why it took the DA so long to decide to import when it could have done it during the off peak season to manage the prices of onions.
“Why decide only now when the harvest season of locally-produced onions is already approaching,” he asked.
“It’s too late to import onions. It will not do our farmers and consumers any good if we import at this point when locally-produced onions are about to be harvested,” Pimentel said.
“Magsama-sama na lang tayong labanan itong (We should fight this). hoarding and price fixing. If we could boycott the purchasing of these imported onions or minimize our consumption, let’s do it,” Pimentel said.
In addition, Pimentel said the DA should go after these hoarders and price fixers to prevent market manipulation of agricultural products.
“Who are liable? May binanggit na cartel (Somebody mentioned a cartel). Who are these people?” he asked.
He also added that the DA should really be accurately recording data and information to help policy makers plan ahead.
“How much is the demand? How much do we locally produce?
“The DA should be our authority insofar as our agricultural production and consumption of agricultural products are concerned,” he said.
“Kung mali ang information, mali rin ang decisions If the information is wrong so will our decisions. be),” he noted.