this was from 2 years ago(October 18th, 2008) and it is still very relevant for me today. It was entitled "Cacao: The Resurrection Crop for Farmers in the Philippines", and in response I would like to disagree and agree, presenting ironic-contradicting but symbiotic relationships.
First of all, the image of our average farmers is a person that drives a carabao and not even a decent truck. Those that drive trucks, they are not the average farmer, they are the hacienderos. Well, I am not saying this to put them in the bad light, the deserved it, because they WORKED hard for it. That is a fact, do not bother arguing with me, that is the scenery here in the Philippines. Our agriculture is not breathing on its own, it is in a comma with an artificial breathing "corporate machine". In short it is not really alive. That is the "DEAD" that cacao will and can potentially "resurrect". Only if our people will embrace the ways and wonderful privileges of tilling the Philippine soil. We are people of the sun and a nation of the soil, not earth destroyers but EARTH BENDERS!!!
In Korea(south), the farmers are the rich in their community, they "work to eat and eat to work". And not work to get drunk and sing KARAOKE! Guess what also in Vietnam? Japan and Thailand? I do not have to embarrass us more by telling you the answer. Are they also driving decent trucks? Do they own the land they till? Exactly that is the DEAD that we as Filipinos need to resuscitate. Ang puso natin ay patay "inlab" sa banyaga, kinasusuklaman natin ang sariling atin. (Our hearts are deadly "in love" with the foreign, we actually hate what we naturally have.) If this was the movie AVATAR, we would have embraced the Sky People's ways and let them mine our "minerals & gold infested" lands. Like what is happening in Mindanao, a Japanese company literally collects our mountains to their barges and bring them home. They do not process it here, they bring them home because ALL of it can be used, yes "lahat"("all"). And our politicians allowed it, how I want to ASSASINATE each one of them. :) Chill, probably I just had to take them one by one, and talk to them. Hehehe, in my nightmares, I do not have to go that far.
"Ang hirap naman!"(Oh, how difficult!) No not really. Go back to the past. And you will see that agriculture has been our task. It has been our true strength and every civilization is birthed and nurtured by basic farming. Farmers must be richest in a truly "culturally sane" Philippines. "Eh kaso nakalimutan natin kung sino nga tayo."(Well, we already forgot who we really are.) Watch HINILAWOD, the longest EPIC in the world, an oral tradition of Panay island, in the Visayas region of the Philippines, that epic depicts who the Pre-Hispanic Filipino is. The real us.
To get in touch with conversations on how cacao and agriculture relates to our rising up as a country. In "perspective of mind" and "economic status", may you somehow find a way of exchanging ideas with me here in the blogs. I do not have all the answers, but I may know who can technically attend to your cacao related inquiries.
Topics like cacao farming, cacao nutrition, cacao economics, and any impact on agriculture and the Philippines will be featured here. It may be current or instantaneous as an oratorical contest, it can eventually appear here. So keep in touch, I would like to help spread the word about starting yourself into liking cacao, agriculture, and make it a point to contribute to the community.
Lupa ng araw, ng luwalhati’t pagsinta,
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo;
Aming ligaya, na pag may mang-aapi,
Ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo
At saka MABUHAY para sa IYO, o inang bayan ko!
(And also to LIVE for you, my beloved motherland!!!)
In addition extreme extent...at PUMATAY nang dahil da IYO!
