KIDAPAWAN CITY\u2014Agriculture 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.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFor as long as I have the trust and confidence of the President, I don\u2019t see any reason to heed the call (to step down as agriculture secretary),\u201d Alcala told farmers, irrigators\u2019 associations and local officials in M\u2019lang and Tulunan towns in North Cotabato.<\/p>\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n
Ariel Genaro Jawid, VACC legal counsel, said the agriculture sector \u201chas undoubtedly sustained the most damage\u201d in the scam.<\/p>\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cDon\u2019t our senators wonder why it\u2019s business as usual there?\u201d said Jawid.<\/p>\n\n
In his speech in North Cotabato, Alcala said quitting \u201cwould be like betraying the trust of the President.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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. Ni\u00f1o, South Cotabato, to lead the groundbreaking ceremony for a rice processing facility in July last year.<\/p>\n\n
According to Jawid, while the rest of the government appears to be toeing the \u201cdaang matuwid\u201d (straight path) policy of President Aquino, \u201cit\u2019s like time stopped in the agriculture department.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
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<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,39],"tags":[137,41955,4341,206081],"byline":[],"source":[206078],"column":[],"editor":[],"videographer":[],"position":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n