AS the first Budget secretary of the Duterte administration, Mr. Benjamin Diokno set the iron-clad, unbending policy on agriculture. We can break down Mr. Diokno's policy prescription into two sentences, which also represented the consensus of the political and economic elite at the time. First, forget about agriculture, it is a sunset sector. Second, in case of food shortages, just import; food importation is the sounder economics. Of course, the economic team was a cabal of agricultural development apostates.

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