'YACON' SEEN SUBSTITUTE CROP FOR MARIJUANA

LA TRINIDAD, BENGUET -- INTERIOR Secretary Angelo Reyes and Director
General Arturo Lomibao, chief of the Philippine National Police, are
staking all their resources in yacon, a rootcrop indigenous to cold
climate regions, which they are offering to marijuana farmers as a
more profitable alternative to weed.

Mayors of Benguet, Mt. Province, Kalinga and Ifugao, where marijuana
plantations continue to proliferate, signed up for Lomibao's and
Reyes' yacon project on Wednesday at the Cordillera police office here
on the promise that yacon plantations will match the yield and value
of high grade marijuana.

Benguet Vice Gov. Crescencio Pacalso said local officials are eager to
try this new solution because the province needs to remove its
continuing stigma as one of the country's top marijuana producers.

Yacon is believed to have healing properties, based on research made
by Rodolfo Quero Sr., who is described here as yacon's discoverer and
advocate.

Chief Supt. Leonardo Dionisio, Cordillera police director, said
businessmen have offered to market yacon as a health drink, on the
condition that Quero holds on to yacon's patents.

"Yacon grows like marijuana, so we might as well plant yacon... I have
been studying the marijuana situation in this region, and I realized
that the farmers themselves do not use marijuana. This only tells me
that they treat marijuana production as their livelihood, and matching
that livelihood with something equally economical is key to
eradicating weed farms in the region," Dionisio said in a press
conference on Wednesday.

Kapangan Mayor Rogelio Leon led a livelihood program in 2003 and 2004
that converted selected marijuana farms into anthurium gardens.

"But we recently learned that we were cultivating a much older species
of anthuriums, so our products were only selling for P20 a dozen. The
market has shifted to a more expensive anthurium species and we need
to start again from scratch to compete with this new demand," Leon
said.

Yacon may be a viable alternative, he said, but farmers will need to
determine if the market will be sustainable.

Leon and Bakun Mayor Marcelo Contada attended the program launching
here, which was marked by the burning of a P20 million marijuana haul
from their towns.

Police reported confiscating P50 million worth of marijuana from the
Benguet towns of Kapangan, Bakun and Kibungan; Bauko town in Mt.
Province; and Tinoc town in Ifugao.