While it is morbid and even sad to say that Agriculture may be dying, it is a fact that there is a crisis.

Slow- death refers to the physical wearing out of a population and the deterioration of people in that population. In most people who are dying, the body’s normal systems start to operate more slowly, including the heart beating more slowly and blood moving around the body more slowly. That is the internet induced of slow death a phenomenon, not just a description.

Attending the Population Development Directors Forum last month, I was stunned with the question more of an observation forwarded by Engr. Juancho Tesado, what happens to the Rice and Coco industries, when the one that plants and harvest the two main crops are ageing? Why do young people shy away from farming?

When these happens who would till the land? Will the young be forever consumers not producers? Would we be dependent to imports? Would our land fertile and ready be reduced to be grasslands without grazing animals?

What other realities comes as the diseases of the Agri Industry that we can say, its on the brink of death? Is it on a slow dreadful slow death? Let me count the ways on why it is indeed, problematic.

1. Rice Tariffication: The Rice Tariffication Law, enacted in 2019, replaced import restrictions with tariffs, allowing private entities to import rice freely. While this was intended to stabilize rice prices and benefit consumers, many local farmers have struggled to compete with cheaper imported rice, leading to financial difficulties. Prices of vegetables and fruits from abroad are cheaper.

2. Land Conversion: The conversion of agricultural lands into residential, industrial, and commercial developments has reduced the land available for farming. Policies have been adjusted to speed up land conversion processes, which has raised concerns about food security and the long-term sustainability of agriculture.

3. Declining Interest in Agriculture: Many younger Filipinos are moving away from farming due to economic instability, lack of government support, and the perception that agriculture is not a profitable or sustainable career. This has led to a shrinking workforce in the sector.
While it is morbid and even sad to say that Agriculture may be dying, it is a fact that there is a crisis. The Department of Agriculture even declared that months ago. We need to enact policy shifts and craft laws for the benefit of the agriculture sector. Unless we do, we will not be having food in our tables, soon, and for the foodie in all of us, it is a disaster!

The ongoing high-class entertainment is not funny to well-meaning people who share the common sentiment at how the senate had been downgraded. The senators who refuse to understand the legal issues despite expert explanations by resource persons insist on their own confused misunderstanding. The lack of understanding is not merely out of resistance to learn or refusal to understand but more on the lack of knowledge to really understand the intricacies of the law, rules and procedures. It really is not an easy subject to learn the fundamentals of statutory construction as it is to act on stage or take several shoots for the silver screen. Truly, no aspect of human activity is easy to learn as the jokers in the senate argue. But the senate is not a place to display acting prowess as the seats are for the women and men who are learned in legislation and governance.

It is not a place to learn the rudiments of governance and legislation by humbugging stance reading notes fed by expert staff. The oral reading of one who presumes to know the substance of legislative propositions is insulting to the intelligence of well-meaning people who understand the context of legislative deliberations. People had surely been witnessing how one actor senator Robinhood Ferdinand “Robin” Cariño Padilla would take the senate floor with his proposed legislation to purportedly strengthen the powers and functions of the audit commission. He took time doing oral reading of notes prepared assumably by legal staff of his office. When subjected to interpellation by the minority floor leader in bar topnotcher Aquilino Martin “Koko” de la Llana Pimentel III, the actor was seen on live stream media grinning as if taking everything in jest.

The appalling part was when he tried to cite by reading provisions of the Philippine constitution as if lecturing to the interpellator Atty. Koko who quizzed the proponent on the legal basis of the proposed legislation. The actor mentioned his having a battery of experts from the audit commission who were backing him to answer the queries. Taking time to gather ideas to answer the queries, he appears taking a light moment dealing with serious questions from the minority floor leader. It was disgusting to watch such kind of demeanor from a member of the senate who had the temerity to display his lack of knowledge, experience and behavior worthy of a member of the senate.

It is indeed unfortunate that the senate of our generation is composed of women and men lacking in apt preparation for the task of legislation and good governance. Gone are the days when honorable women and men who had prepared educationally and earned experience for the exacting job of legislation. Senators of old were topnotch lawyers, economists, political scientists and graduates of other disciplines.

There are artists who are well-known and famous as they are watched by patrons on stage, television and the silver screen but are mindful of the tasks in governance that they would not dare run for elective office. In our generation, popularity and money had been the main consideration in running for elective public office. It is high time for voters to be mature in making their choices of candidates for elective public office. Certainly, voters may be the root cause to be blamed if we have in our senate or any elective government position nothing but a mere king koy.

comments to alellema@yahoo.com

THAT toughness comes from the supernatural grace of God. It is not just a human love, based only on natural forces, principles and motives which, given our wounded condition, are always hounded by our infranatural tendencies toward envy, anger, hatred, jealousy and the like.

Christian love does not suppress what is human and natural in us. It simply elevates and purifies it. And as such it can manage to have a universal scope that can include even loving our enemies.

It is this love that, as St. Paul said, would enable us to be all things to all men (cfr. 1 Cor 9,22), allowing us to adapt ourselves to all kinds of people, situations and conditions.

Indeed, St. Paul made this beautiful hymn of Christian love when he said: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Cor 13,4-7)

Christ, of course, is the very embodiment of this kind of love, and all the saints and the holy men and women through the ages have tried to live by this standard. We too are asked to have this kind of love, since Christ clearly told us to love one another as he himself has loved us. (cfr. Jn 13,34)

We need to be strong and tough, first of all, because our life will always involve, if not, require nothing less than continuing effort and struggle. Christ himself said it clearly: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force.” (Mt 11,12)

This is because there are goals and challenges to reach. And they are not merely natural, social or human goals. They are spiritual and supernatural that obviously need both grace and nothing less than our all-out effort.

Besides, given our wounded human condition, there obviously are problems and difficulties to face, temptations and consequences of our sins, mistakes and failures. There will always be issues that we need to resolve.

This is not to mention that each one of us has his own personal weaknesses to tackle. Everyone is prone to laziness and complacency, to narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness, if not blindness to spiritual and supernatural realities, all of which can lead to complications in our life.

We have to deal with the concupiscence of the eyes and the flesh, the pride of life, our tendency to be vain and self-centered, and to be dominated by the urges of lust and sensuality, greed and avarice, gluttony, and the many other disordinate passions we have.
We have to know the peculiarities of our emotional and psychological make-up, so we can be prepared to deal with the ups and downs of our life, twists and turns of life’s drama that can lead us to wild mood swings and to more serious conditions like falling into bipolar and similar mental and emotional illnesses.

This is not to mention that we have to learn how to cope with the consequences of the other extreme of committing mistakes and sins, suffering defeat, being a failure that can plunge us to depression, self-pity and despair. Or the sweet poison of success that can spoil us.

Let’s never forget that we also have to deal with spiritual and supernatural enemies of our soul. We are actually ranged against powerful spiritual enemies. We really need the toughness of Christian love to live our life properly.