Focus on agriculture sector, Camarines Sur solon tells Marcos
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.
Camarines Sur 3rd district Rep. Gabriel Bordado Jr. is prodding President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to focus on improving the agriculture sector, specifically toward achieving food security. This, as the minority bloc congressman noted that the President himself had admitted recently that he failed in pursuing game-changing reforms as the concurrent Department of Agriculture (DA) secretary. “Our economy will remain unstable for as long as food security is not achieved. We can only stabilize commodity prices if problems in the agricultural sector are properly addressed,” Bordado said in a statement Sunday, July 2. Bordado is a member of the House minority bloc in the 19th Congress. Marcos has been serving as DA head honcho since the start of his Palace term on June 30, 2022. Bordado said that while the Philippines' gross domestic product (GDP) improved beyond expectations under Marcos, the country also registered a 14-year high inflation rate in 2022, hitting 8.7 percent in January this year. Economists attributed the high inflation rate to the unstable prices in basic commodities, particularly onions and sugar. The World Bank (WB), in a report released shortly after the pandemic broke out in 2020, cited the importance of transforming the country’s farming and food systems to ensure strong food value chains, affordable and nutritious food, and a vibrant rural economy. In the same statement, Bordado lauded the Marcos administration for steering the country to a 7.6 percent GDP growth, "the highest so far in the country’s 40-year-old history," the solon said.