The observations we are going to make on the hybrid rice program of the Department of Agriculture is being made in the spirit of constructive criticism. We just hope that Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap would take it in this light.

We would not have touched this simmering issue were it not for talks going around agriculture circles that the good secretary is possibly not being given the full picture by his subalterns regarding the growing restiveness among rice farmers whose freedom of choice was seriously curtailed by a giant subsidy scheme implemented by the DA.

We hope that this piece will help Yap get the full picture.

Here?s the situation which should alarm the government especially with news about the rising prices of rice, the most basic of basic commodities.

Very recently, rice farmers from Nueva Ecija?one of the largest rice-producing provinces in the country?lamented what they say was the failure of a rice hybrid seed variety to live up to its promise to triple their harvest.

That hybrid rice seed is called SL-8, produced and distributed by a Filipino-Chinese firm called SL Agritech which owned by a certain Henry Lim Bon Liong. It is not our habit to indulge speculations, but Secretary Yap has to be advised that the general perception is that this Lim Bon Liong is his close friend.

The anger of the Nueva Ecija farmers over the failure of their use of the SL-8 is aggravated by the fact that Secretary Yap has limited their options to just this one seed variety. This is because SL Agritech is the only hybrid rice seed dealer that Secretary Yap has blessed with billions of pesos in taxpayers? money by way of a subsidy.

Here?s how the subsidy scheme curtailed the rice farmers? choice. Lim Bon Liong?s SL Agritech sells his hybrid rice seeds to rice farmers at below-market price. Secretary Yap then pays Lim Bon Liong the difference using government funds earmarked under the Hybrid Rice Commercialization Program nicknamed ?Ginintuang Masaganang Ani? or GMA, an obvious effort at identifying this program with the President.

Interestingly, only Lim Bon Liong enjoys this subsidy from Secretary Yap. Interestingly, the government released P551 million for this scheme in 2004, P780 million in 2005, P1.6 billion in 2006 and reached P2.5 billion in 2007.

No figures are available on how much Secretary Yap set aside for Lim Bon Liong in 2008, but we presume it could be more than what he allocated for the previous year.

  And because it is only Lim Bon Liong who enjoys the subsidy, only he can sell to farmers at below-market price since we, taxpayers, shoulder the difference.

Varieties sold by other better-known seed suppliers like Bayer and Pioneer had to continue to sell at regular market price.

  We do not know how Lim Bon Liong cornered the Yap subsidy, but what we do know is that he is officially referred to as ?preferred supplier.? Maybe, there is a government procurement system that allows for that. Maybe we hope there is an explanation why Lim Bon Liong?s hybrid seeds are stored right at the provincial offices of the DA. We hope so. Otherwise, the term ?preferred? would acquire a different meaning.

To cut the long story short, the Yap subsidy enabled Lim Bon Liong to practically corner the market since he is selling at below-market. Rice farmers, expectedly, went for the SL-8 because it was cheaper.

Was it better than the traditional variety or seeds supplied by Bayer or Pioneer?

Lim Bon Liong?s glowing press releases say so.

But rice farmers think differently. We recall that the performance of Lim Bon Liong?s seeds already went under fire from rice farmers from both Visayas and Luzon as early as 2006. Now, it is the turn of Nueva Ecija farmers to lament their misfortune.

The misfortune is described as a ?bansot? harvest. ?Bansot? because Lim Bon Liong?s seeds gave birth to undersized crops that yielded only one-third of its promised results.

We hope Secretary Yap realizes how embarrassing it is for the President to have her GMA rice program equated with a ?bansot? harvest. Lim Bon Liong may not care about this embarrassment, but Secretary Yap should.

The Southeast Asian Regional Institute for Community Empowerment, an international nongovernmental entity, already questioned the performance of Lim Bon Liong?s seeds also as early as 2006. The institute is not in business competition with Lim Bon Liong so the study and the warning got much attention and credibility.

Except on the part of Secretary Yap, it seemed.

Maybe it was fine for Secretary Yap not to mind the warning of Bayer in 2006 that subsidizing Lim Bon Liong would give rise to price distortion in the market and destroy the level playing field.

But it was sad that Secretary Yap may have ignored the plaint of the farmers about the consequences of a curtailed freedom of choice, especially if the sole option has ?bansot-ized? their harvests and likewise ?bansot-ized? their hopes for a better life.

Even sadder is the fact that during the period that Secretary Yap was subsidizing Lim Bon Liong?s SL Agritech firm, the country went through an episode of rice shortage and a skyrocketing of the price of the staple food.

That crisis negates any and all propaganda on the part of Lim Bon Liong that his taxpayer-subsidized seed is the savior of the rice sector.

Since he came into office, Secretary Yap had been passionately mouthing his platform that ?all agricultural subsidies must end.? He did not do so as far as Lim Bon Liong?s SL Agritech is concerned.

He must now explain to Filipino rice farmers why the seed variety that he subsidized did not deliver the promise, but only gave them bansot woes.

Maybe, he should also explain to us. On second thought, that money with which he subsidized Lim Bon Liong?s enterprise was our money.

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News reports that congressmen have been given the power to meddle in the use of infrastructure funds of the Public Works Department through a special provision in the proposed budget law is frightening.

Some congressmen have skewed priorities on public work projects.

Take the case of Eastern Samar. The province probably has the most dismal national roads in the country despite the huge spending by the department and the sizable Priority Development Assistance Funds of Rep. Teodulo Coquilla.

One would think that Coquilla would give priority for repairing the province?s dilapidated national roads. Wrong. Sources say that Coquilla, through the Public Works Department district office, has seen fit to make road signs, traffic control posts and guardrail posts?to the tune of about P90 million?his priority.

With the state of the national roads of Eastern Samar, those signs and guardrail posts are unnecessary. There are more potholes than level road; speed of 20 km per hour and up is impossible.

Fed up with the current state of the national roads in the province, concerned groups including the Sangguniang Panlalawigan and the Provincial Development Disaster Coordinating Council have passed resolutions asking Gov. Ben Evardone to help rehabilitate the national roads.

DPWH should have welcomed the offer. However it just ignored the two letters of Evardone for the province to help repair the roads using the provincial government?s equipment and a P10-million allocation.

Perhaps Coquilla can explain why. Talks are that the department will not move without his imprimatur.

And now all public works and highways projects will have to get the imprimatur of congressmen? That would indeed be a disaster.