In a prostrate sector, vileness does not rest

The time of the virus is, in the ideal world, the time to end the assault on the country’s small farmers. Small farmers in the country are the country’s wretched: invisible to government, prey to repressive laws like the Rice Tariffication Law, avoided like a plague by the banking mainstream — and voiceless and cowed. The average age of the Filipino farmer is 57 years as the young generally shy away from the heartbreaks those small-scale farming deals on the young. I come from a long, uninterrupted line of small farmers. The current reality is this: I may be the last of the hardscrabble Ronquillo males foolish enough to sustain the small-farming tradition.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is so engrossed with propaganda and image building that it totally jettisoned its legal and moral mandate to help the small farmers.