Why Filipino small farmers remain poor

Why are Filipino small farmers poor? Why do they remain poor despite the fertile lands and abundant supply of fresh water in the Philippines?

The knee-jerk response of populist opinion writers dabbling in agriculture-related development issues, and pretending to be experts on such concerns, is that the government has neglected our farmers, or worse, exploited them to favor powerful vested interests in the country. Though there might be a grain of truth in their hypothesis, the reality is far from their imagined existence of a pervasive conspiracy to keep the small farmers poor.