Despite soured deal, groups offer OFWs to milk dairy industry

by William Imperial and Arianne Apostol

QUEZON CITY—Despite the soured deal between the National Dairy Authority and the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos, executives of both group bank on the dairy industry for migrant Filipino workers' investment.
"Even without the MOA, [the NDA] will be there to assist them in starting their own dairy business," NDA chief Sally Bulatao told the OFW Journalism Consortium.
"They [Ercof and other investors] are very much welcome," she added. Bulatao was referring to a memorandum of agreement that the NDA entered into with Ercof January this year that would allow migrant Filipinos to invest on livestock, specifically cows.
However, the NDA terminated the deal last March upon Ercof's withdrawal of its P100,000-advance payment.
“The only reason why we initiated the deposit was to have a priority in the cow purchase from NDA, given the scarce supply and the NDA being the main source,” Ercof president Ildefonso Bagasao told the OFW Journalism Consortium.
The deal was supposed to give Ercof the privilege of selecting and buying the cows ahead of other potential buyers. Dairy industry trader Danilo Fausto who represented Ercof in the NDA deal said he advised pulling out the money since he found another source of cows at lower prices.

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