On CME’s anniv, BSP official pushes for more funding for agricultural universities

The College of Management and Economics (CME) successfully invited one of the six members of the monetary board from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) as their anniversary convocation speaker to discuss national fiscal policies and how it impacts agricultural development.

In his keynote message, Dr. V. Bruce J. Tolentino, who is the Private Sector Representative of the BSP talked about how our present monetary policy forced the national government to accommodate an uncompetitive agricultural strategy wherein many of the current interventions are anchored on farmer dole-outs that are not bringing direct gains to the national economy.

The CME guest speaker also emphasized that radical changes have to be made to make the agricultural sector productive. And for him, one of the most effective ways to do so is to invest in mature agricultural universities like VSU.

“Productivity issue is really an R&D [research and development] issue and to do this, we need to invest more in mature agricultural universities like VSU that can come up with innovative ways that are research-based to solve the many agricultural problems that beset our country.”

Because of this productivity issue, Tolentino challenged the university to collaborate more with national government agencies because they have the monetary fund that can support many research activities that can directly benefit the people and spur the local economy.

Dr. Tolentino also added that our government’s obsession with achieving agricultural self-sufficiency is an inaccurate way to address issues on food security.

“It’s not about self-sufficiency, it’s about feeding the people. It’s not about being able to produce from within the country only, it’s about feeding the people. That’s what food security is, no matter where it comes from.”

Related to this, he also emphasized that the best way to increase the country’s food supply is to remove the many limiting trade barriers implemented by our policymakers.

“Our agricultural policies have issues. It has been all about price protection for farmers. We prevent the trade from taking place. Because we’re afraid that farmers will get hit when we open trade up. We need to remove trade barriers. We need to stop the DA [Department of Agriculture], BPI [Bureau of Plant Industry], BAI [Bureau of Animal Industry], and all the other agencies controlling trade. Let’s just open it up. We need to push trade and supply side reform to improve agricultural competitiveness, that means enabling sustainable farm productivity.” 

To prove his point on this, he presented initial data as to how the rice tariffication law has become beneficial to the national economy since trade barriers were removed for rice that made way for greater imports thereby stabilizing the price of the country’s staple food.

You can watch and review his recorded full discussion here.

Aside from Tolentino’s talk, a financial literacy seminar and a webinar on gender equality and socially inclusive university were also hosted by CME together with its active supreme student council.

This also includes another informative lecture on how cooperatives help in attaining sustainable development that was delivered by Dr. Daniel S. Helman, a visiting faculty from Micronesia. 

He is a professor, geoscientist, and researcher from the College of Micronesia - Federated States of Micronesia (COM-FSM) from Yap Campus, which is one of the five campuses of the COM-FSM system.

Student-leaders of CME also managed to pull off other meaningful and fun activities for their college anniversary including a trade fair, online essay writing and quiz bee including a local version of the hit show Amazing Race - VSU Students Edition.

CME has five units, the Department of Business and Management (DBM), Department of Economics (DOE), Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management (DTHM), Institute of Strategic Research and Development Studies (ISRDS), and Visayas Socio-Economic Research and Data Analytics Center (ViSERDAC).

The concurrent dean of CME is Dr. Moises Neil V. Seriño who is also part of the technical panel for the economics of the Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED), where he met Tolentino of BSP and invited him to come to VSU in celebration of their college anniversary.

CME’s week-long celebration ran from March 6 to 10, 2023 with their theme focused on “Challenges and Opportunities in Leaping Forward to a Sustainable Future.”

For the success of the weeklong celebration, CME Dean Dr. Seriño thanked all the academic units and research centers under his college including the student organizations that provided help and support to facilitate the many activities for their 13th anniversary. 

The young dynamic Dean is hopeful that his college will grow more vibrantly in the future as one of the strongest colleges in the VSU system.

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