At 34, youthful-faced Father Osias Ibarreta Jr. seems both wise beyond his years and ahead of his time. A linguist, with a fondness for quoting stanzas of classical English verse in mid-conversation, the smiling priest’s eyes widen as he describes his vision of the Philippines’ future. To get there, these days he preaches sustainable agriculture as the long-term salvation of his congregation – the much beleagred Filipino farmer.
As Executive Director of the Social Action Center of Tarlac (SACOT), one of a network of 88 diocesan centers forming the social action and development arm of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, Father Osias is a leading advocate of combating rural poverty with a bevy of holistic, environmentally-friendly farming practices, and for empowering farmers to thrive rather than simply survive.
It’s a big task.
With cheap agricultural produce imports flooding the domestic market and well-heeled consumers of Manila happily dining on healthy portions of Thai rice, farmers around the archipelago justifiably feel that they are losing out. And they are not alone. According to Manila-based National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace (NASSA), 87.5% of Filipino families now live below the poverty threshold level. Furthermore, influential Filipino environmentalist Nicky Perlas, of the leading sustainable development think tank
Center for Development Initiatives (CADI), notes that two-thirds of the farmers in the Philippines are considered poor, and most are now, as he calls them, “second-class citizensâ€. He added that recently, for the first time, the agrarian nation of 80 million began importing over 200 million metric tonnes of its prime staple food, rice.
But now, with voices around the country calling out for change, Father Osias is matching words with action – and is achieving healthy empirical results through the application of alternative strategies that challenge the status quo.
At SACOT, a three-hour drive north of Manila, the APHD-supported project Damayang Kristiyano: Sustainable Agriculture Enterprise Development and Crop Loan Extension Program boasts a collective membership of 245 farmers involved in cooperative development, capability building and farmers’ empowerment, food and agri-based productivity, community livelihood, and technology and skills enhancement. So far, the mentor-priest says the project has succeeded in setting up a progressive and self-sufficient community based on the exercise of democratic governance, the equal distribution of resources, and the maintenance of an ecologically balanced environment.
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