Alcala says he won’t quit as Senate told to focus on DA

KIDAPAWAN CITY—Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala on Monday said he will not resign amid calls for him to do so and just as an anticrime group called on the Senate to take a closer look at how the agriculture department has been used as a tool to plunder public funds through the pork barrel system.

“For as long as I have the trust and confidence of the President, I don’t see any reason to heed the call (to step down as agriculture secretary),” Alcala told farmers, irrigators’ associations and local officials in M’lang and Tulunan towns in North Cotabato.

In a statement, however, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) called on the Senate to focus its investigation of the pork barrel scam on how the Department of Agriculture has been used for the plunder of billions of pesos of public funds using farmers supposedly as beneficiaries.

Ariel Genaro Jawid, VACC legal counsel, said the agriculture sector “has undoubtedly sustained the most damage” in the scam.

Jawid recounted testimony at the Senate made by Benhur Luy, the main witness in the scam, that while the doors for corruption in government have narrowed under the Aquino administration, they remained wide open in the agriculture department.

“Don’t our senators wonder why it’s business as usual there?” said Jawid.

In his speech in North Cotabato, Alcala said quitting “would be like betraying the trust of the President.”

Amalia Jayag Datukan, regional director of DA, said Alcala is the first agriculture secretary who had no qualms in traveling to remote villages. He is the first head of the DA to set foot in Barangay Ambalgan in Sto. Niño, South Cotabato, to lead the groundbreaking ceremony for a rice processing facility in July last year.

According to Jawid, while the rest of the government appears to be toeing the “daang matuwid” (straight path) policy of President Aquino, “it’s like time stopped in the agriculture department.”

He cited the case of Ophelia Agawin, an agriculture official linked to the 2004 fertilizer scam, who was appointed to a key position in the DA. Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao