Dar gets DA post
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Mon, 05 Aug 2019 16:18:36 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has appointed William Dar, a columnist of The Manila Times, as acting secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
He will replace Emmanuel Piñol, who was transferred to the Mindanao Development Authority.
Dar, an agriculture expert, has been involved in the agriculture sector for decades. He became the first director of the DA’s research arm, the Bureau of Agricultural Research, in 1988.
He said he learned of his appointment when he got a call from Malacañang on Monday.
He attended his first Cabinet meeting on Monday night.
He admitted to being overwhelmed with feelings of “gratitude to the President, of course, and to God.”
“I will collect myself first,” Dar told The Times when asked about his outlook for the Philippine agriculture sector.
During the Estrada administration, Dar briefly served as acting Agriculture secretary from 1998 to 1999 and as presidential adviser on rural development.
He also served as director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) from 2000 to 2014, the first Filipino to serve as head of a global agricultural research institute.
When he retired from Icrisat, Dar founded the Inang Lupa Movement Inc., a social volunteer group that advocates modernization and industrialization of Philippine agriculture.
For this feat and other contributions, Dar received The Outstanding Filipino Award in 2016.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd welcomed Dar’s appointment, saying he had the educational qualifications, and domestic and international experience in the field of agriculture.
The President also appointed Wendel Avisado as acting secretary of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), according to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea.
Avisado, the national president of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, served as presidential assistant for Yolanda rehabilitation.
While Dar has yet to warm his seat, Sen. Cynthia Villar on Monday asked the new Agriculture secretary to see to it that the DA would return the funds intended for the programs that would help farmers after the expiration of the quantitative restriction on rice imports.
Villar, chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Food Committee, said the DBM released P5 billion in December last year in anticipation of the enactment into law of Republic Act (RA) 11203 or the law creating the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
Of the amount, only P1 billion went to RCEF’s program providing farmers access to cheap credit through the Landbank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines.
With Dar as DA head, Villar expressed hope that the department would support the full implementation of the law and prioritize the return of the P4 billion to RCEF.
The senator said the amount was needed to jumpstart the programs enumerated in the law.
RA 11203, which was signed by President Duterte on Feb. 14, 2019, replaced the quantitative restriction on rice imports with tariffs. The collected amount will be given to farmers to improve their competitiveness through RCEF.
Under RCEF, P5 billion will be allocated to the Philippine Postharvest Development and Mechanization for the procurement of equipment to be distributed to 947 rice-producing towns in the Philippines. P3 billion will be allocated to the Philippine Rice Research Institute to teach farmers how to produce inbred seeds, which will increase their yield by up to 50 percent.