REMEMBER when the prices of onions were exceedingly high during the last quarter of 2022, with the local red variety costing between P500 and P720 per kilogram and the local white onion was sold at around P600 a kilo?
Well, the House of Representatives committee on agriculture and food just established this week that this happened because the country’s supply of yellow Granex or white onions had dwindled to just 656 metric tons as of Aug. 5, 2022 – and that was good only for five days.
Two weeks after New Year’s day 2023, data from the Department of Agriculture which is headed in concurrent capacity by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. showed that the local red onion was sold from P240 to P350 in Metro Manila markets, a little over imported red onion which was P200 to P250 per kilo.
The sizable decrease in prices can be attributed to the importation of 3,960 metric tons of fresh yellow onion and 17,100 metric tons of fresh red onion, during the period Jan. 10-27, 2023.
‘Here’s another reason for the Marcos administration to hurry up and appoint a regular agriculture secretary, one who is an expert in the field…’
During the House committee hearing, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. castigated Director Gerald Glenn Panganiban and the rest of the officials of the Bureau of Plant Industry for their failure to anticipate the country’s onion inventory during the period in question. The congressman called out Panganiban for his inaction in August 2022 to have a certificate of necessity to import (CNI) signed by a higher authority at the DA, specifically the senior undersecretary or the secretary himself.
An approved CNI would have allowed the government to import onions during the ensuing non-harvest months of September to December. This, in turn, could have prevented the absurd price spike on onions in late 2022, when it reached over P700 per kilo.
During the hearing, Panganiban kept on bringing up that the transition in government at that time resulted in the non-approval of the CNI that he prepared on Aug. 10, 2022. The veteran solon argued that Panganiban — who has been in the BPI since 2003 — should have known what to do in order to prevent an onion supply shortage.
It is now clear that Filipino consumers had to suffer the scarcity of onions and their highest prices during that holiday season because of inefficient DA officials like Panganiban. Also contributing to this fiasco is the sugar importation scandal that preceded the problem of onions, during which DA Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian resigned or was fired because of the sugar importation scandal. This abnormal situation in the DA resulted in Sebastian’s inability to process the CNI request from the Bureau of Plant Industry.
One good thing about congressional hearings is that loopholes in government offices and their procedures can be dissected and studied. Because the DA secretary is President Marcos — who is not reporting in the department’s central office every day and by virtue of being the Chief Executive is seldom accessible to ordinary bureau directors — these foul-ups are bound to happen, and in fact have occurred to the detriment of the public.
Here’s another reason for the Marcos administration to hurry up and appoint a regular agriculture secretary, one who is an expert in the field and who can micro-manage the department, starting with pruning the heads of the agri smuggling syndicates within the department.
