BANANA players in Mindanao are pushing for the fast approval of the Philippine Comprehensive Banana Act of 2017.
Philippine Exports Confederation (Philexport)-Davao president Ferdinand Marañon told reporters Monday, October 24, that they are eyeing to ask Davao del Norte Representative and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez to sponsor the bill.
“The interim board of the National Banana Industry Council is set to meet for the next few months to elect the first set of officers,” he said. The proposed law will pave way for the institutionalization of National Banana Industry Council and establishment of the National Banana Research Center.
With the law, it will allot an annual budget for the council to further develop the industry’s growth.
In a recently concluded National Banana Congress last October 7, President Rodrigo Duterte proposed that establishing the council and a banana research center will be best done through legislation, not an executive order (EO).
“I cannot give the executive order (for the creation of the Banana Industry Development Council). If you are asking some budget or government intervention, legal basis must be there,” the President said.
He recommended that the creation of the council and research center be integrated in the proposed Philippine Comprehensive Banana Act of 2017.
At present, the interim council is composed of big banana growers, exporters, medium and small growers, processors, cooperatives, agrarian reform beneficiaries and government representatives, including Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, Trade secretary Ramon Lopez, and Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno.