How Do We Judge PBBM as Agriculture Secretary? Let's Compare.
November 20-27, 2023
“I truly believe and I think I was proven right that there are many things that only a President could do and the problems were so important and were so deep that I felt that the authority… I suppose moral persuasion of a President was necessary for us to be able to figure out, and it really was, agriculture is a much much more complicated thing than most people understand…”.
This is PBBM, explaining why he appointed himself as Agriculture Secretary. From the above, one can hopefully glean that the President thought that only he, or rather his “moral persuasion” could help the Department of Agriculture (DA) figure out its problems, seeing as agriculture is “much much” more complicated than most people understand.
And his “truly believe and…proven right” means that he thinks he was a success, so now he is able to turn over the helm to another.
What does the evidence show?
Let’s start with data from our National Income Accounts, from which we can compare the performance of PBBM against that of three immediate past predecessors.
The table below shows the growth rates (%) in the AFF (Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Sector, in constant 2018 Pesos, in the first five quarters of the Presidential terms of Marcos II, Duterte, Aquino and Arroyo, respectively. I stopped at five quarters, obviously, because that is the length of time PBBM held the DA Secretary position.
Reader, this table shows that either because of, or despite PBBM’s being Agriculture Secretary, the performance of the AFF was dismally lower than its performance under his three Presidential predecessors, who preferred to appoint other people to the post. I am not saying that his predecessors in Agriculture were brilliant. I am not even saying they were good. But what the data show is that their performance as shown by AFF growth, was “much much” better than his.
Now, let’s compare PBBM’s performance against what the AFF Sector set out to do as recorded in the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028. PBBM loves to refer to it, talking about his desire to be transformative and digitalized. Its target with respect to growth in the AFF sector are 1.3% – 3.3% every year of the PDP . From the table above, the actual average growth rate during PBBM’s watch is 1.02% (five quarters). For his first year in office, it was 1.05%. And for the year ending in Q3 2023, it was 0.75%. So AFF growth was not only lower than his three predecessors, but also much lower than the target he set for himself in the PDP.
The PDP’s also has a targeted growth rates of 2.3-5.5% a year for AFF labor productivity. What actually happened during PBBM’s watch as Agricultural Sec? Labor productivity in agriculture, between Q3 2022 and Q3 2023 grew by 2.5%. PBBM hit the target, albeit at its lower end.
The last PDP target we look at has to do with the value of AFF exports increasing by 6.4 a year over the life of the Plan. How did PBBM do during his stint as Aggie Sec? From the PSA’s National Income Accounts we extract the following:
