Despite the huge input the industry has made in terms of taxes and revenues, government fees, jobs, livelihood, and export earnings, it is the only thriving agricultural sector that has not been legislated.
In fact, major industries such as sugar and rubber have their own regulatory agencies that address issues and concerns affecting them. There is no Philippine law that exclusively protects and promotes the banana industry, and investors in this sector use their own funds with almost no technical, financial, and subsidiary support from the government.
To name a few, there is the Sugar Regulatory Commission, which manages sugar; Philippine Coconut Authority for coconut; Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority, for abaca; Philippine Rubber Research Institute for rubber; National Tobacco Authority for tobacco; and Philippine Rice Research Institute for rice.
During the National Banana Congress 2016 held in Davao City, the industry stakeholders pushed for the creation of a Banana Industry Development Council. In support of the move, President Rodrigo Duterte declared:
“The proposed measure is the creation of a Banana Industry Development Council. Now it should be a law, I cannot give executive order. So, because if you need something, money or otherwise; if you need government to intervene – the legal standing has to be something like there is a law, the force of law in the creation of the banana research institute.”
During the same congress, the industry sector, through the interim board of the National Banana Industry Council and the Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) 11 also pushed for the passage of the Comprehensive Development Act for Banana.
A draft bill of the proposed measure was submitted in 2016 to the House of Representatives, now headed by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (1st District, Davao del Norte) but no member of Congress sponsored it.
Challenges
Notwithstanding its billion-peso contribution to the national economy, the banana industry, particularly the fresh banana sector, survives on its own amid the various challenges it faces.
It is the only industry that has no banking supporter, and it gets its funding from outside financial institutions and investors. It is self-financed and survives without state support.
While the President has encouraged the strengthening of exports in order to create more jobs, the industry is in dire straits given the wobbly socio-political climate that is endangering it. Worse, it is deemed as the most harassed industry given the threats it has received as a result of rising insurgency, misguided agrarian reform claimants, informal settlers, and other risks.
Between February and May 2017, over a dozen rebel atrocities were recorded, inflicting huge losses in the industry while displacing hundreds of laborers.
In Davao City alone, the most devastating attacks happened on April 29, 2017, when three banana establishments were torched, resulting in PhP1.2 billion in losses.
On that day, the rebel New People’s Army stormed the banana plantation of Lapanday Foods Corporation in Mandug, Davao City. After burning some of its equipment and structures, the company guards were armed. Simultaneously, they attacked and torched the Macondray Plastic Plant in Bunawan, followed by the confiscation of high-powered firearms of a banana plantation in Calinan, both in Davao City.
The threats to the banana industry also includes pests and diseases, natural calamities, climate change aftereffects, high production costs, inconsistent government policies, anti-banana industry legislations, statutes that cripple sustained competitiveness, and the moratorium in the expansion of plantations.
