A SMALL farmer in any part of the country could not watch the heartbreaking video feeds and TV footage from severe Tropical Storm Maring's pummeling of agricultural areas in Northern Luzon for long. Standing rice valued at over P1 billion turned into flattened, soaked, matted straw.

Standing yellow corn worth hundreds of millions of pesos crumbling from the sheer force of rushing floods. A farmer trying to save what he could from a bumper corn yield in a drying area with the help of volunteers and netizens, largely for nothing.