Fact-Checking? ABS-CBN's Dennis Datu Says Onion Farmers In Mindoro Want The Department Of Agriculture To Cooperate With Them: That’s Fake-Checking!

What onion farmers in Occidental Mindoro want, they don’t get – it stems from their own failure because they don’t give what the Department of Agriculture (DA) needs from them first: membership in a cooperative, to help them from planting to storage & marketing.
(“Successful” image from YouTube.com)

The onion news is negative from ABS-CBN News by Dennis Datu whose conclusion is that the DA is not helping the farmers, while he ignores the explanation of Regional Director of DA MIMAROPA Antonio Gerundio (07 April 2022, “Mga Magsasaka Sa Occidental Mindoro Umaalma Sa Mababang Presyo Ng Sibuyas,” ABS-CBN News, news.abs-cbn.com).

As I am about to show you, that is journalism that is at best distractive, at worst, destructive. Mine is journalistic fact-finding mixed with fake-finding!

Mr Datu says:

Maraming magsasaka ang napapaiyak sa sibuyas, dahil sa kawalan umano ng tulong ng Department of Agriculture para mapataas ang presyo nito. Tila sinisi pa ng kagawaran sa MIMAROPA ang mga magsasaka kung bakit bagsak ang presyo ng sibuyas sa Mindoro dahil sa hindi umano maganda ang kalidad nito. Umalma rito ang mga magsasaka ng sibuyas.

My free translation:

Many farmers are crying over their onions, alleging that the Department of Agriculture (DA) has not helped them any in raising the prices. Instead, the DA seems to be blaming the farmers for those falling prices in Mindoro by saying the local onions are of low quality. The farmers objected to that strongly.

Mr Datu himself ignores his own facts! In the same report, he says Mr Gerundio says those Mindoro farmers complaining have previously refused to become members of the farmers’ cooperative in their part of Mindoro, That is why the DA cannot help them – having refused to become members of the group that could have assisted them not only to sell onions at fair prices but in the first place to finance planting those onions, and store them when necessary. As it happens, the cooperative cannot help them because previously they refused to help themselves! The cooperative has the funds for farmers and the truck for bringing the produce to the market. Mr Gerundio says:

“The have to be members of the cooperative, or we cannot help them.”

Now, look at the top image: The onions are in sacks out there in the field, unprotected from the elements. In a proper cooperative, the onions would be in cold storage as they wait to be bought. Otherwise, the onions deteriorate into low quality, as Mr Gerundio is saying. As Mr Datu reports, Mr Gerundio says the quality of the onions is unacceptable, with the bulbs even maybe attacked by a disease.
(image of onions in sacks from Inquirer.net)

Mr Gerundio also says some farmers still irrigate their fields before harvesting. Buyers refuse to buy because they know that the bulbs will rot almost at once.

The onion farmers blame the DA when they are the ones guilty! Thanks ABS-CBN for this story that is a fact-checker as well as a fake-checker!@517