Latest in Manny PiñolMindanao’s agriculture is more modern and more productive than Luzon’s, and life on the island is more peaceful, more affordable, and full of more opportunity than Metro Manila, making it the better place to live and work for any Filipino willing to go back, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel…
The Philippines’ chronic failure to solve its geographic fragmentation has produced one of the most absurd realities in Philippine agriculture: it costs more to ship bananas from Mindanao to Metro Manila than to export them to Japan and China, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol…
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. still has two years to act on the most urgent threat facing Philippine agriculture: the flood of imported food that is wiping out local farmers one sector at a time. This was the assessment of former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol, who stressed that the…
Corruption in the Philippines has penetrated every layer of society, from the lowest traffic enforcer to the highest offices, and the only way to reverse it is a president with no corruption record, strong enough not to be influenced by vested interests, and willing to enforce accountability…
The Philippines can produce enough food to feed its entire population, but the real crisis is that tomatoes rot in Cavite while sardine makers in Zamboanga import tomato paste from China, and fish pile up unsold in Tawi-Tawi while the same island lacks vegetables and chicken. This is because no…
Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s greatest and most lasting legacy in Mindanao was not just infrastructure or economics but peace—specifically, the framework peace agreement he reached with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that has since undergirded the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, former…
The Philippine hog industry is collapsing under the weight of imported pork from Brazil flooding the local market, with live hog prices crashing from over ₱200 per kilo to ₱110-130, and former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol is warning that when hog raisers quit, the corn farmers who…
The government’s approach of giving farmers cash assistance and handouts as its primary agricultural intervention is wrong, counterproductive, and breeds dependence rather than productivity, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Wednesday. The former Agriculture chief made the…
Former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol is promoting two unlikely food crops as the future of Philippine food security—wagyu beef cattle, which he says can be raised profitably even in backyard farms, and breadfruit, a native tree that provides food for generations from a single…
The Marcos administration’s economic team is systematically undercounting agriculture’s contribution to the Philippine economy by ignoring food processing and manufacturing, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Wednesday. Piñol claimed that this error that makes the Philippine…
The Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) did not bring down rice prices as promised, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Wednesday. In fact, Piñol said it drove them higher, while simultaneously killing the livelihoods of Filipino rice farmers by surrendering the country’s rice…
The Philippines is on a path toward becoming a failed state in terms of food security if it continues to rely on importation rather than boosting local food production, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol warned Wednesday. Piñol made the statement in an interview on DZRH News…
Former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol has sought the help of Manila City Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno Domagoso, saying Filipino rice farmers are “crying and losing money” as farmgate prices plunge to as low as ₱8 to ₱10 per kilo amid a flood of imported rice in the local market.…
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