Sen. Cynthia Villar, who chairs the committee on agriculture, food and environment is now reaping sarcasm and rebuke from netizens after she belittled the farmers and fishermen for being ignorant about climate change during a hearing of the Department of Agriculture’s 2023 budget.
One of the most criticized senators—because of her own doing as she talks above everyone else like she is all- knowing like God—is Sen. Cynthia Villar, wife of ultra- billionaire Manuel Villar who has looked condescendingly at nurses, the middle class, the researchers and now the farmers and fishermen.
She lectured the Department of Agriculture during the hearing for the 2023 budget when she told the officials:
“Huwag mong aasahan yung mga fishermen at farmers because they don’t know anything.. They will protect themselves? Di nga nila naiintindihan ang problema eh. Wah niyong iaasa sa farmers at fisherfolk kasi sila, hindi naman nila naiintindihan yang climate change.”
As expected, she got the lambasting from peasant leaders and fisherfolk group heads for belittling their kind and for her views of their ignorance and naiveness on matters affecting them like the weather and climate change.
Villar said the DA should be more proactive in addressing the impact of climate change instead of providing livelihood assistance to affected sectors.
“Palagi kang tinatamaan ng bagyo, anong gagawin mo para mabawasan yung damage ng bagyo sa particular na lugar na yun? ‘Wag livelihood (project),” she said.
Social media reactions
Netizens slammed Villar for being haughty and out of touch.
“Cynthia Villar claims to be a “champion” for the environment yet she belittles the ability of farmers and fisherfolk to understand climate change. These vulnerable sectors understand climate change better than her as they experience its impacts every day,” one Twitter user said.
Another one tweeted:
“Cynthia Villar doesn't know that farmers and fishermen are aware of their positions and problems, and they have, for years, proposed solutions to resolve the problem within the fishing and farming sector that people like Cynthia Villar ignored because they're "uneducated.”
Someone who goes by the ID World Domination Blues tweeted:
Cynthia Villar should shut the f--k up. She doesn't even have the right to speak on farmers and fisherman when all she does is to convert their lands into a f--king low-class subdivision.
This person replied to a comment on Villar’s statement with:
“but what can we expect from THEM? all they care about is themselves and their pockets. and sadly, Filipinos still fall for their trapo words.”
Inquirerdotnet posted on Twitter:
LOOK: Several farmers’ and fishers’ groups slam Sen. Cynthia Villar over her remarks yesterday during DA’s budget hearing that farmers, fishers “don’t understand” climate change. Fishers’ group Pamalakaya says Villar “should go touch some grass.” | @dempseyreyesINQ
Many tried to educate Villar instead using on-the-ground inputs, while farmers’ groups called her out for belittling the sector.
Most netizens labelled her like “matapobre,” “mayabang at arogante,” she should eat grass like cows, still others said what made climate change worse was the massive land conversions into subdivisions like those of the Villars, another said farmers and fishermen understand climate change, as they experience it, more than politicians;.
One whose ID is Ordinaryong Pilipino tweeted:
Mas masangsang pa sa isda at mas madumi pa sa pusakal ang pagkatao ng matapobreng senador... Ano na bang nagawa nyan? Sana madala na ang mga botante sa mga klase ng politikong nakaupo na inuuna ang sarili kaysa inang bayan.
In 2013, Villar drew flak for saying nurses don’t need to obtain an undergraduate degree because they supposedly only work as “room nurses” overseas.
Six years later, she castigated the DA for allocating a considerable budget to corn research, saying she doesn’t see the point of conducting studies.
Villar also questioned the grant of financial assistance to the middle class at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the poor are “deprived” of aid if the government will also help those who have regular jobs.
Tags: #SenCynthiaVillar, #climatechange, #netizens’hatereactions, #landconversions