Recipe for an Agricultural Hiatus: A Study on the Repercussions of Bureaucratic Corruption on the Farmers of the 1st and 2nd District of Bulacan

Abstract

The Philippines is on par with the worst of the world when it comes to bureaucratic corruption - being labeled as the most corrupt in Asia. The thesis entitled Recipe for an Agricultural Hiatus: A Study on the Repercussions of Bureaucratic Corruption on the Farmers of the 1" and 2"d District of Bulacan studies the effects of the Fertilizer and the Irrigation Fund Scams, both of which are cases of bureaucratic corruption, on the first and second district of the province of Bulacan and on the country in general. The Philippine agriculture is already on a weakened state; with industrialization, an export-oriented economy, massive land use conversions all over the archipelago, climate change, and the constant rise in farming utilities all working into its detriment. In that light, the Fertilizer and the Irrigation Funds were supposed to be the messiah of the country’s already dying and backward agriculture. Yet these funds never really went into the hands of its beneficiaries. More or less 3.8 billion pesos were lost and was deliberately enveloped by a cloud of fraudulence. Allegedly, the Fertilizer and the Irrigation Funds were used to gas up the Presidential Campaign of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on 2004 and the May 2007 elections respectively. Coincidentally, it was during the promulgation of these funds that the prices of fertilizers increased and that the country underwent through a devastating dry spell. Had the funds been released as it was supposed to be, damages to both the agriculture and the disheartened farmers could have been minimized or better yet completely prevented.