RP - The Carrot and The (Marijuana) Stick

Pinch

Well-Known Member
Baguio, Phillipines - IFUGAO Representative Solomon Chungalao got the flak late last year for broaching the idea of filing a bill to legalize the cultivation of marijuana. Actually, he did not file a bill, but was only thinking out loud about it.

Before he could explain however the critics were already firing at him and his idea.

Even his fellow Cordillerans were startled and quick to pounce on the bold idea, presuming without reading his motives that there was already a formal measure that was due for first reading. Some members of the Ifugao and Benguet Provincial Board even readily came up with resolutions announcing they were against the non-existing bill.

I don't know whether they took the cue from Chungalao, but vegetable farmers in Benguet recently warned agriculture officials they would be forced to shift to marijuana cultivation should the government decide to import carrots from China. They said so when they picketed public consultations on the planned importation of carrots. They demanded nullification of the results of a government panel's pest risk analysis that would have paved the way for carrot importation.

Flooding the local market with better-looking and cheaper imported carrots would spell the death of vegetable farming and the only means of livelihood and survival of thousands of Igorot families.

The protest pickets by the Benguet farmers is rare and, therefore, encouraging and refreshing.

For years, community organizers and farmer-leaders have been groping for a rallying point to convince them that collective and cooperative action is the key to their improving their lot. Until the threat of carrot importation, many of the farmers have been weathering it by their lonesome. They were reluctant to organize and were resigned to bear the whims of the seasons and the schemes of price traders and farm input producers.

Year in and year out, hard work was their only way coping with the manipulations of middlemen and "kotong" cops on the road to the market, as if these human nuisance were as natural as typhoons and pests. There is always the lingering hope that the next cropping season would be different and better, what with the continuous entry of new planting seed varieties, fertilizers and pesticides, which sound more promising and safer than the previous brands.

With support from Benguet leaders and agricultural experts from the Benguet State University, the suddenly demonstrative farmers temporarily got the reprieve they want. The bilateral trade agreement has been put on hold until the Bureau of Plant Industry has come up with a thorough review of its pest risk analysis on Chinese carrots. This after experts from the BSU presented their own analysis, explaining that they identified 12 pests in Chinese carrots. They said two of the pests are highly dangerous, and that This Third World country of ours is in no technological position to control them should they be introduced through carrot importation. Suddenly, the farmers realized they can have a voice and can be a force, even if actual deliverance is far from sight.

Unlike the farmers, Chungalao got no support because he was misunderstood outright. He was stopped the moment he opened his mouth, as Galileo was tried for heresy for defending the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun, contrary to the then popular belief. The truth was that, in broaching the idea of legalizing marijuana cultivation, Chungalao was actually trying to drive home the same point the farmers raised in their demonstrations, which is to seek greater National Government attention and sensitivity to the economic woes of the people of the Cordillera.

Chungalao's problem was of presentation. The farmers were direct in saying they would resort to marijuana production just to survive if carrot importation would be approved. Chungalao's announcement of his thought about filing a bill legalizing marijuana production was also taken within that simple context.

"If only they read between the lines," Chungalao later told local newsmen after the controversy stirred by his thinking aloud about marijuana. He said the critics, who pictured him in a "pot" session or planting cannabis sativa on the Ifugao rice terraces, missed the point. The point, he stressed, lies in the fact that majority of people being collared, charged and imprisoned for planting, transporting and selling the contraband are from the Cordillera.

Poverty had driven some Cordillera farmers to resort to marijuana production, which, although illegal, is always a high-value crop compared to cabbage, beans and carrots. Production will continue as long as the Cordillera provinces remain poor and undeveloped while their resources, such as water and mineral deposits, are being harnessed to further develop other parts of the country.

For whatever its worth, Chungalao tried to explain that if he would file such bill, marijuana production would be on a limited scale, restricted and closely monitored and only for scientific and medical purposes.

I can read between the lines. With their experience, some of our Cordillera brothers are the most competitive and qualified to produce quality marijuana for scientific and medical purposes.



Source: Sun Star Baguio
Copyright: © Copyright 2002 - 2005 Sun.Star Publishing, Inc.
Contact: Ramon Dacawi at rdacawi@yahoo.com
Website: sunstar.com.ph/static/bag/2005/05/02/oped/ramon.dacawi.html
 
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