Musa taxtiles Nee
WTF! I don’t know why our dear president would put out Executive Order No. 502 (attached below) which bans “the harvesting, gathering, buying, selling, and mutilating of matured and young leafsheaths of abaca plants for commercial purposes.” It even mentions that “it is considered on of high value commercial crops contributing to an average of P4.5 B revenue for the country and providing direct and indirect employment to an estimated 1.5 million Filipinos.”
I don’t know what’s on her mind, or what she has planned. What worries me is that abaca gives livelihood to so much people. Some people are drowning in poverty and this ban would make them, and even those who are living quite comfortably, suffer even more.
Abaca is used in medicine, furniture, manila rope, pulp, paper…even Banko Sentral uses abaca for the paper money! It is (or should I say, was?) one of our chief exports, too.
If Pres. Gloria is for the economy, why is she doing this? Is she even doing this intentionally? That, I don’t know. I just hope this is isn’t true…false information disseminated among those of immediate concern, just to pull her down.
The Filipinos have endured suffering. I just hope they won’t have to endure even more…
EO No. 502: page 1, page 2
(Note that this is a retyped version since the faxed one wasn’t that readable. Sorry for minor typos.)
What’s ironic is that tomorrow an author will be launching a book regarding the wondrous abaca, its uses and other related info.
Filed under: Uncategorized by Loki