"GULAY ARCHIPELAGO"

President Arroyo to Turn the Philippines into a “Gulay Archipelago”

Written by Bobby Reyes - Jan 26, 2009 at 10:53 AM

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed recently Executive Order No. 776, which “directs officials to undertake an urban farming and fisheries program to help provide alternative employment for people in the face of the dismal global economic outlook.” The “Gulay Archipelago” Project, as some presidential aides have dubbed it, is part of her administration's Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) that includes the “Gulayan ng Masa” and the “Integrated Services for Livelihood Advancement” (ISLA) for subsistence fishermen.

When Filipino army-and-police generals heard the announcement of EO 776, they initially cheered it. They thought that the President wanted to make the country a Filipino version of the then Soviet Union’s “Gulag Archipelago.” They were disappointed, however, when they learned that the initial announcement carried a typographical error.

However, Los Angeles-based poet and pundit Fred Burce Bunao said that it would have been advisable for President Arroyo to make illegal the planting of vegetables, urban farming and backyard fishponds. Mr. Bunao said had she done so, almost all Filipinos would immediately start to violate Mrs. Arroyo’s Executive Order and, therefore, the country would have an oversupply of vegetables and other urban-farm products in due time. Mr. Bunao also said that the Arroyo Administration borrowed his copyrighted phrase, “Gulay Archipelago,” without his permission. He said he used the phrase as early as 1988 in his humor column.

Another Filipino-American pundit, Bobby Manasan of the Commonwealth of Virginia, was reportedly heard to have said that the present “sh_t” in many government offices could be turned into organic fertilizer for President Arroyo’s mandated urban farms and suburban fishponds. Mr. Manasan allegedly said further that “the ‘Gulay Archipelago’ project could be an excellent opportunity for discredited former Agricultural Undersecretary Joc-joc Bolante to obtain redemption by gathering all the ‘sh_t’ and other dirty craps in government bureaus and departments and turning them into compost.”

On the other hand, some Filipino religious leaders fear that the Arroyo Administration’s push for the “Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program” will turn into CLEEPtomania. Some wags like the running priest, the Rev. Robert Reyes (not related to this writer, who is only a namesake), say that some presidential kin and cronies are virtually kleptomaniacs and they would probably take advantage of the CLEEP to make more money at the expense of the people.

Philippine political-opposition leader Sen. Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr., welcomed President Arroyo’s “Gulay Archipelago” initiative. Speaking in Tagalog, Senator Pimentel said: “Mabuti naman at tapos na sana ang pagtatanim nang sama ng loob ng ating Pangulo at magtatanim na lang siya nang mga gulay.” (It is good that the President will stop planting the seeds of discord and she will just plant vegetables.)

President Arroyo ordered the launching of “Gulayan ng Masa” and the “ISLA” in urban communities, with the active participation of the Department of Agriculture, local governments, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor). Vegetable gardens and backyard fishponds will be set up in vacant lots and unused government lands.

Unconfirmed reports say that the Pagcor plans to install huge aquariums in all the country casinos, so that tilapia could be raised in them. The tilapia harvests then could be used by casino restaurants. Instead of growing roses in hotel-resort gardens, the Pagcor will convert them into vegetable plots. Flower pots in Philippine casinos shall be converted into water-filled containers where asparagus could be grown hydro-phonically. The Pagcor plans further of converting all the swimming pools in all the country’s hotel-casino resorts into “instant fishponds.”

Homeowners of palatial houses in Metro Manila’s exclusive residential enclaves such as Forbes Park and Magallanes Village reportedly are up in arms with the Pagcor plan of converting their mansions’ swimming pools into fishponds. Leaders of the homeowners associations said that the Pagcor could do it only over their dead floating bodies.

The government will distribute—instead of cash—only vegetable seedlings and tilapia-and-catfish fingerlings to participants who will be identified by the Office of the President (OP). This way, the President’s advisers say that nobody could dip their dirty fingers into the fund for the fingerlings.

As of press time, the OP has not issued a confirmation of whether another clone of the President would be created to head the CLEEP and/or the “Gulay Archipelago” Task Force.