by Rizalie A. Calibo
Siquijor (27 May) — Siquijor State College (SSC) President, Dr. Dominador Q. Cabanganan recently expressed support to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s campaign to increase the country’s agricultural production.
In an interview with the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) here, Dr. Cabanganan said “agricultural development has been at the core of his comprehensive development plan for the modernization of Siquijor island” that already started four years ago.
Dr. Cabanganan is also the President of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities for Industrial Technology, Vice-President of the Local Governance for Tertiary Research Institute Philippine Network, and Vice-President of the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC).
He has attended the conference called earlier by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Malacañang with other presidents of state colleges and universities (SUCs) and officials of concerned government agencies to discuss ways and means for them to play a vital role in the government’s food production drive under the FIELDS program.
FIELDS stands for the six areas of support where the government will infuse P43.7 billion in funding assistance: Fertilizers; Irrigation and other rural infrastructure; Extension, education and training for farmers; Loans; Dryers and other postharvest facilities; and Seeds of the high-yielding varieties. It is the government initiative that hopes to further boost rice yield and guarantee food security amid the emerging global food crunch.
Discussing briefly the concept of his comprehensive plan which also include concerns such as students’ welfare development, faculty and staff development, infrastructure development and facilities development, among others, Dr. Cabanganan strongly calls for involvement of all sectors to come up with concrete actions that will redound to making “the poorest of the poor Siquijodnons at least two percent above GNP,” as his overarching goal contained in the long-range development plan.
One of the immediate strategies, he said, is giving incentives to the farmers and agricultural workers like the provincial and municipal agricultural officers and technicians to encourage good production. “But incentives should come from the income that they derived from their produce not ‘dole-outs’,” he said.
“Personally, I am not in favor of buying rice outside the country. It is a wrong economy,” he said explaining simply that if we buy goods outside the money will go to the other countries. “But if we buy our own products, ‘bisag mahal’, our people will still benefit and they will be encouraged to produce more,” he said.
Agreeing to President Arroyo’s remark that one of the reasons why we have problems in food supply is the lack of agricultural technicians and workers as caused by the decreasing number of enrollment in agricultural courses in SUCs, Dr. Cabanganan pushed for the government to offer free or low tuition fees which he said is also part of the agenda that he is going to discuss with the Congressman here.
He said he will propose for an “earn while you learn” program that encourages farming and entrepreneurship at the same time.
Dr. Cabanganan admitted that agricultural courses is less attractive to students as evidenced by the number of enrollment in their school. “We have been offering agricultural courses for two years and notably the number of enrolment is plunging, he said. “It is really high time we encourage students by giving them incentives,” he said.
The “earn while you learn” program is seen to answer the problem where students are given projects related to agricultural development in the form of ’soft loans’ that enables them to learn and earn at the same time.
“I do not believe in food insufficiency. The problem that we are facing now is too small if we only work together effectively,” he said quoting once more that “there is no barren soil, only barren minds.
“All we need is creativity and resourcefulness to look for means to produce more food based on the type of climate and soil that we have,” Dr. Cabanganan said citing the need to identify crops that thrive well in a certain town and pursue on it. All these of course, he said should have God’s blessings. “If our life and all our efforts is anchored on Him, everything will turn out easy,” he said.
Another immediate strategy he cited as SSC’s intervention to the gov’t food security program is its extension program for Siquijor province where each of the six Deans from SSC are mobilized and assigned to assist each of the six local government units (LGUs) in the province. He said, the school has been working on these for several years and so far, it is paying off.
The non-stop increase in oil prices and the unprecedented food price shock now roiling the world has prompted President Arroyo to mobilize the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the 110 state colleges and universities (SUCs) to come up with programs to intensify the training and increase the number of agricultural technicians and workers as well as encourage students to enroll in agricultural-based courses.
Along with it, she has directed the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to freeze all tuition fee increases in the 110 state-run colleges and universities nationwide to help students and parents cope with the global rise in oil and food prices.
For us to keep producing highly-skilled graduates who will lead our country in its leap to First-World status in a decade’s time, Government must reverse the drop-out rate and set off an environment conducive to our parents to provide quality tertiary education for their children, be it in private institution or in our state universities and colleges. (PIA)
