With Nabcor out, a new deal for veggie trading center

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala is working out a new management contract for a controversial vegetable trading facility built here for the thriving highland vegetable industry, after the abolition of its supposed caretaker, the National Agribusiness Corp. (Nabcor).

Alcala motored here on Thursday to check on the progress made in the construction of the P400-million Agri-Pinoy Trading Center designed to improve the distribution of salad vegetables produced in Benguet and Mt. Province.

Nabcor, an attached corporation of the Department of Agriculture (DA), was implicated in the pork barrel scam for allegedly allowing bogus organizations to facilitate projects financed by the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of several legislators. It was officially abolished in March.

Nabcor was tasked with managing the trading center, according to the memorandum of agreement of the Benguet trading hub, said Marilyn Sta. Catalina, agriculture director in the Cordillera.

Without Nabcor at the helm, Benguet Gov. Nestor Fongwan and La Trinidad Mayor Edna Tabanda asked the DA to allow farmers to run the trading hub.

But Alcala’s solution was to form a management team after attending a closed-door meeting here with Fongwan, Benguet officials and farmers’ groups.

“The Agri-Pinoy Trading Center will be managed professionally by a management team or group that will be acceptable to all stakeholders,” the secretary said.

He also scrutinized the new trading structures because of concerns raised by Fongwan and La Trinidad officials that these buildings were located on a swamp and not properly fortified.

The trading center would rise near La Trinidad’s strawberry fields and offer farmers and vegetable suppliers a much wider trading area, dry and cold storage facilities and a dormitory to house farmers and traders from other vegetable-producing towns, Alcala said.

Last year, however, the La Trinidad municipal council passed a resolution citing a municipal engineering report that said the DA contractor used back-filling materials unsuitable for the swampy terrain.

When asked, Alcala said his agency had discussed this with the contractor. “We are thankful that the provincial government saw this problem earlier and allowed us to correct it on time,” he said.

“What is more important now is the construction of the trading center. We would like to expedite the construction so that hopefully, by December, we will be able to serve farmers,” he said.

Fongwan said he wanted the trading hub to become operational by next year when the economic integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) officially begins.

Protecting the highland vegetable industry is crucial to an Asean free trade environment, an official of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in a separate news conference here on Thursday.

Vegetables produced by Benguet and Mt. Province represent 80 to 85 percent of the country’s annual supply, said Juanito Yabes, Cordillera regional statistical officer of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, which has been absorbed into the PSA.

“If the Cordillera highland vegetable industry collapses, then it [would affect] the whole country,” he said. Kimberlie Quitasol and Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon