Notes on the beat: A look at the DA’s dream team

MANILA, Philippines — Dream Team. It’s the nickname of what has been considered as perhaps the greatest basketball Olympic team ever formed.

It was in 1992 when the “Dream Team” became a reality: the first team to be fielded by the USA composed of active, professional National Basketball Association players – Jordan, Pippen, Robinson, Bird, Ewing and so on.

And that term has been used in various fields and disciplines to describe a team stacked with unprecedented caliber in talent and skill.

It’s also a term that the current Department of Agriculture (DA) leadership is describing itself.

Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., the fishing tycoon-turned-agriculture secretary, has formed the biggest leadership roster in the department’s history – 13 undersecretaries and 13 assistant secretaries.

The team is composed of technocrats, returning agriculture officials and private stakeholders from retired technical people to former industry leaders.

This mix of officials, Tiu Laurel points out, is necessary for the department to attain a whole-of-nation approach in tackling the problems of the country’s agriculture sector.

Some of the undersecretaries attest to Tiu Laurel’s wisdom. One undersecretary said the Secretary wanted to bring his “business” or “private sector” style of management to the bureaucracy by designating specific people to every critical line of operations.

“He wants to run it like a business, like a corporate entity. There is an accountable person per portfolio,” Christopher Morales, undersecretary for rice industry development, said.

“We are like small business units,” Cheryl Marie Natividad-Caballero, undersecretary for high value crops, said.

And this policy mindset is the primary reason why the DA has a record number of undersecretaries and assistant secretaries today.

“We have a huge coverage and there is somebody that should focus on each area,” Tiu Laurel previously said.

Indeed, the DA is one of “most complicated” agencies in the bureaucracy. It has nine attached bureaus (from training, soil to fisheries and livestock), eight attached agencies (from credit, pesticide to carabao and fibers) and nine attached corporations (from tobacco, dairy to sugar and