'MON TULFO'S "BUKO" THINKING

In his Inquirer column today, Ramon Tulfo is so extremely bullish in highlighting the apparent great demand for "buko" juice in the US, Europe and China, he says the Philippines, being supposedly the world's number one coconut grower, should already forget copra.  Tulfo's optimism is of course not entirely new..  One recalls that sometime in September last year, it was President Aquino who first broached that idea locally upon returning from one of his trips to the US, even as no one has since heard about it from the President.  Maybe -- just maybe -- the President had eventually realized, or was reminded that coconut was, and is, no longer our principal crop and that, in fact, we can barely meet the likewise fast-increasing demand for buko juice and young coconuts in the local market.

That Tulfo suddenly suggests we avail of the opportunity to cash in on the current demand for buko juice worldwide and, at the same time, for other coconut products like virgin coconut oil,  "tuba" and "lambanog," as well as coconut husks and shells for making upholstery and charcoal -- though he rightly says we may forget copra -- amuses me endlessly, indeed.  Doesn't Tulfo realize that the production of buko juice and of all the other coconut products he mentioned is a contradiction of sorts?   It's a matter of plain common sense that buko juice comes from young coconuts while those "other" products are produced only from fully matured ones.  I didn't know, alas, that such rather "buko" thinking could emanate from an otherwise very coherent journalist, whose ideas, excepting this one, I highly respect.  Excuse be for bluntly saying so; it's just that I always tend to react to statements that defy plain common sense.