IF President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is really dedicated to uplifting agriculture, he would be in a position of utter discomfort at every Cabinet meeting. The apt Filipino term is "naalibadbaran." Here are some faces with a mandatory presence at those regular meetings.
Benjamin Diokno, the finance secretary and leader of the economic team, is an apostate of Mr. Marcos' main policy plank: agricultural renaissance. He holds a visceral loathing for agriculture and anything and everything related to it. Leaders of farm organizations who pleaded to Mr. Diokno for small increases in the budget for agriculture during the time he was former president Rodrigo Duterte's budget secretary got stern lectures, not support. Mr. Diokno told the appealing farm leaders this: agriculture is a sunset sector with little contribution to the gross domestic product, and service is ascendant. Forget it.
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