 |
Sec. Luwalhati Antonino,
Mindanao Development
Authority
|
“In
the same way that we created the country’s first river basin councils in
Mindanao to integrate all watershed and river basin management, so should you
create a similar council for the banana industry,” the chair of the Mindanao
Development Authority (MinDA) said in her message Thursday to the 500-strong
delegation to the Mindanao Banana Congress.
Speaking
as guest of honor to the first Mindanao-wide banana congress spearheaded by the
Philippine Exporters Confederation recently, Antonino exhorted both big banana
corporations and smallholder farmers to strengthen alliances among their ranks
and bolster coordination with government agencies to collectively resolve
industry issues.
Mindanao’s
banana industry has been beset with problems such as the outbreak of the
Fusarium wilt disease, the reduction of Philippine banana exports to China
caused by pest infestation issues, and the consequent glut in Mindanao that
forced the industry to seek new markets.
Resource
speakers from concerned government agencies presented way forward actions and
recommendations in direct response to the clamor of industry players for
government support and intervention.
“Now
is the time for all of us to work together to make these recommendations a
reality,” said Antonino, adding that convergence of private and government
efforts have proven to yield positive results as evidenced by successful
advocacies MinDA has undertaken in partnership with Mindanao stakeholders.
Antonino
was referring to MinDA’s continuing advocacy, undertaken with multi-sectoral
support and participation, for Mindanao to get its fair share from the national
budget.
This
led to Mindanao getting a 33.62 percent increase, from P163.98 billion in 2011
to P219.10 billion in 2012, under the 2012 National Expenditure Program (NEP).
She also said that from the P1.816 trillion budget in 2013, five of the six
Mindanao regions will get an increase of almost 40 percent over this year’s
allocation.
“It
bears to point out that in terms of national allocation for the economic
sector, which include budget for agriculture, Mindanao received a whooping
increase of 300 percent, from P4.7B in 2011 to this year’s P20B, accounting for
32.4 percent of the national total,” she said.
According
to Antonino, Mindanao has never seen this kind of budget windfall ever, but
that it had only been possible under a transparent and accountable national
leadership, saying that “President Aquino has a big heart for Mindanao”.
She
also called to ‘harmonize uncoordinated approaches of government support
services for agriculture to ensure Mindanao’s agriculture agenda is effectively
met,’ stressing that a convergence of actions towards resolving issues will
yield a promising future for Mindanao’s Banana Industry.(PR MinDA)
