Farmers cry for help as Palay price drop, Cynthia Villar says they're competitive

Wazzup Pilipinas!

"Sen. Villar:  Yung mga rice farmers natin hindi sila competitive relative sa mga rice farmers of Vietnam and Thailand."

When Cynthia Villar throws heartless, trashy, baseless, and shitty comments one after, she goes trending again for her insensitivity towards our essential workers, specifically our farmers, that they're asking too much even though they're being leverage unfairly. How accurate this image can be?!

Obviously your billions can't buy you a heart and brain! Nakakasuka ka, beshy! You don't know how farmers struggle with their everyday living. Palibhasa puro ka kasi convert ng agricultural lands into subdivisions. 

Did you know that Cynthia Villar is the incumbent chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food? Her remarks really contradict her assigned duties. 

I am very much worried and very much disappointed with your recent statements regarding the current status of agriculture in the Philippines especially concerning our farmers.

Madam, you gotta go!  

After our registered nurses, local farmers naman ngayon ang tinitira niya? The audacity of Cynthia Villar to talk about competitiveness. Holy senator go pat yourself on the back for always saying the smartest statements (sarcasm).

Your recent statement on farmers lacking of competition in relation with other countries was very much faulty and undermining. THE FARMERS DO NOT LACK IN COMPETITION specially when the government already killed them and wasted all their efforts by providing laws and provisions that are ANTI FARMERS specifically mentioning RICE LIBERALIZATION ACT that you yourself sponsored and authored. STOP POINTING FINGERS for the things that you yourself created. You are very much educated and even one of the leading senators during the last election. However, you can't even process the real situation that our farmers are experiencing. PLEASE DO YOUR JOB. 

Sen. Cynthia Villar will do anything to paint our local farmers as the bad people. She will dub them as incompetent and lazy. She will compare them to foreign farmer and blame them for their struggles. Is this how a senator must act? For a land grabber, she has the audacity.

Cynthia Villar shouldn't be allowed to voice her opinions out. So privileged, so out of touch from reality. Is she a capitalist pig?

Ang sama sama ng loob ko. Give our farmers their farmlands and resources back.

Philippines was once leading in rice exports. We were not competing, we were once the standard. 

Palay is sold for as low as PhP 12 per sack now. Think of how much that‘s hurting our Filipino farmers and their livelihood. 

PhP 12 per kilo** my bad. Still, the thought remains the same. Luging lugi na ang mga magsasaka natin. 

Pagdating sa pamilihan, almost 3x or 4x ang price. Ang gastos sa abono and bayad sa farmworkers tumataas, pero ang selling prices nila akala mo spaghetti — pababa ng pababa.

Sobrang pagod na nga, lugi pa, tapos pambabayad lang nila sa inutang nilang pangpuhunan para makapagtanim.

May mga time na malulugi pa dahil may bagyo. Kung mamalas-malasin, pepestehin pa yung pananim. Ewan ko na lang bakit hindi nila yun mapansin. Baka pati utak nila napeste na rin.

Help din sana ng government na i-sell ang produce nila directly and less middleman para sila talaga mag-benefit. Kulang din talaga ng interventions, ever since. Very reliant pa rin sila sa middlemen kasi di rin sila aware paano mag connect with consumers. Kawawa masyado.

Iba din kasi priority ng government ngayun pero may department naman din na dapat nag-ha-handle sana sa mga concerns ng farmers.

karamihan po kasi ng mga magsasaka ay small time lang at di walang budget para mag angkat kung kayat ang mga middlemen at landlord ang tumutubo. nakakalungkot lang na kaya pala mag angkat ng dolomite for *beautification* pero ang palay at gulay hindi mapondohan.

And people have the audacity to say that people stay poor because they don’t work hard. Tang*na lang talaga!

Mali ka, Madam Cynthia Villar. Our farmers know exactly what they need for good harvest. They are also willing to learn new farming techniques as long as accessible sa kanila ang programs. Grabe. Alam po kasi ninyo as expertise ay gumawa ng low cost subdivisions with sub par materials. Conflict of interest!

Our lady of subdivision. Cynthia Villar!

Cynthia Villar has not just been expressing her dumb opinions on agriculture. She's also echoing every neoliberal economist's talking points: that PH is not suited for rice farming, that our farmers are not productive enough, that migration from agriculture reduces poverty, etc.

And data may partially support those claims. But beyond the numbers, at the heart of discussions on agriculture is ultimately the question of development. What kind of economy do we want? Where do farmers find themselves in our models of progress? 

Nasa atin ang IRRI, sadyang inuubos lang ng mga developers like Villar ang mga farmlands, pero hindi papatatalo SAN MIGUEL, mega gigantic airport, ilang thousands of agricultural lands ang tatabunan nila. Development is good but not at the expense of a balance for this part of our source of food.

And to think she's heading the Senate Committee for Agriculture. She should be kicked out of that committee and be replaced with someone else who actually gives a damn.

Cynthia Villar shouldn't be the agriculture secretary when she owns a monopoly over stolen agricultural land in a semi-feudal nation. She steals land from farmers who work long hours to make an unlivable income and the food we eat. They are exploited yet they are the "lazy" ones?

Her opinions are all anti-farmer and are invalid as her interest is clearly not in agriculture but rather her monopoly that lives off of the semi-feudalist system. 

Farmers are the most exploited and poorest people in the country yet this is who is assigned to them.

Same as his son who leads the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the conflict of interests are extremely high for the two.  

Naging environmentalist kuno noong sila ang pwedeng bahain? Whatever happened to the lands you converted to subdivisions which displaced people and robbed them of their livelihoods? Did you ever bat an eyelash back then?

If Cynthia Villar will ever be elected to public office again, ang bobo na lang talaga ng mga boboto sa kanya. Not only is she self-serving, she's also insensitive to the plight of the poor & the working class.

The below statement, though was not really said by our farmers, is more appropriate:

Farmers: Cynthia Villar is not a competitive senator relative to those of the other countries.

Cover image © A for Arts

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