PeNoy to Pinoys: Eat lice

CONSUMERS DEMAND!
Mentong Laurel
12/13-19/2010



When PeNoy’s government raised the NFA wholesale price for rice from P23.50 to P25.00/kg and the retail price from P25.00 to P27.00/kg last December 7, it was literally telling poor Filipinos: “Go, eat lice.”

Hunger statistics of the past years already show that Filipino families who pass a day or more being absolutely without food, or experiencing “involuntary hunger” within a period of three months, comprise up to 25% of the population; while the “poor” as a percentage of the population can fluctuate between 50 to 75% depending on the price of rice and other foodstuff.

Every peso added to the cost of the people’s basic staple while wages and employment levels are at crisis levels translates to increasing hunger and poverty, and invariably greater social unrest and economic deterioration. The PeNoy government may argue that this price increase is for the good of the farmers who are among the very poor anyway, but this doesn’t sound plausible after the PeNoy Cabinet decided to cut the NFA budget at the onset of its administration.

Even more telling is the NFA’s official reason for the price increase, that is, to “ensure the viability of the agency.” Does this mean that it will mainly go to support the agency and not the farmers? One cannot conclude that what is good for the agency is automatically going to redound to the good of the farmers. The statement implies that the P2 price increase is not necessarily going to be passed on to the rice farmers as price support or a similar incentive. The highly sensitive statement, coming as it does from a superb wordsmith (having been a campaigner for PeNoy in the last election) who now heads the agency, couldn’t have been a mistake.

Frankly, I can’t blame the new NFA for scrounging around to raise funds for itself, especially with the way PeNoy’s Cabinet expressed its disdain for the agency by pulling out support for its clients--the rice farming sector--early on.

Still and all, there is a better way to go about the rice supply and pricing problem: Instead of P21 B for the CCT dole out program, the government can very well allocate just a third of this for farmers’ organizations. This will increase rice production by reviving moribund irrigation systems, supporting seed programs and organic fertilizer production, employing workers and farm hands, raising production and enriching the farmers a little. These will then redound to a stabilized rice supply situation and a lowered hunger and poverty incidence.

By the supply and price of rice do Philippine governments rise and fall, and this may just become the rice straw that breaks the camel’s back.

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