Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan on Tuesday, May 12 apologized to resource persons invited by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food and Agrarian Reform for the abrupt cancellation of its scheduled hearing due to the sudden leadership change in the Senate.

Pangilinan made the apology in response to farmer advocate and chef Waya Araos-Wijangco who expressed dismay about the recent events in the Senate on the day they were supposed to participate in the committee hearing.

The senator said they had no choice but to cancel the hearing since all Committee chairmanships were declared vacant before 13 senators voted to oust Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III as Senate President.

“My apologies, Waya for the cancellation of the hearing as the Senate in yesterday’s plenary session declared all positions vacant which includes all Committee chairmanships,” said Pangilinan, who used to head the agriculture panel.

“I am arranging to meet with the Benguet group later this afternoon before our plenary session convenes at 3 p.m.. Whether or not we are Chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, we will remain a sitting senator and will continue as such in pushing for our agriculture and fisheries advocacies centering on empowering our food producers, our farmers and fisherfolk,” he said.

Pangilinan said the Senate’s sudden reorganization is but “a temporary setback” and will not in anyway “dampen our resolve to fight for our farmers and fisherfolk and the agriculture sector.”

“We did not give up in facing political battles in the past when the odds were far greater and yet we prevailed. We certainly will not give up now,” Pangilinan said. 

‘Walang honor, walang bayan, walang hiya’

In her post on Facebook, Araos-Wijangco lamented that they were supposed to be at the Senate today together with partner farmers as they prepare to speak before the committee to share the realities they face, especially now, with soaring fuel prices.

“All week they worked on their statement. Farmers from across communities sent stories and concerns: rising fertilizer costs, poor roads, lack of cold storage, predatory trader pricing, imported vegetables undercutting local produce, climate change, El Niño, transport costs eating into already razor-thin margins. They tried to shape years of hardship into something coherent enough for our leaders to finally hear,” Araos-Wijangco said.

She further said these farmer representatives even went as far as rearranging their schedules during planting and harvest season, found people to tend fields in their absence, mothers arranged childcare, bought bus tickets and traveled for hours to Manila “because they believed that maybe, finally, government would listen.”

However, when they arrived, the hearing was cancelled. There is also no certainty when the Committee on Agriculture will reconvene, or whether it will even have the interest or empathy to genuinely engage with farmers’ concerns, according to the chef.

“What happened yesterday at the Senate feels like a new low. Our farmers came prepared with lived experience, practical solutions, and dignity. The Senate responded with cancellation notices and political theater,” she said.

“The senators have shown us clearly who they represent: themselves, their dynasties, their ambitions, their interests. Not the people who plant food nor the people who wake before dawn to harvest vegetables that feed our cities. Not the people carrying this country on their backs while being paid the least and blamed the most,” added the farmer advocate.

“Walang honor, walang bayan, walang hiya (No honor, no country, no shame),” she sternly added.