Commentary
Bugaboo
Cebu Daily News
First Posted 15:42:00 05/12/2008
The rice problem is not as serious as the government would overstate it. There is a food crisis all over the world, but the Philippines is not as hard-hit as the other developing and really starving countries. The rice crisis is a bugaboo created by the administration to divert attention from the real problem of the nation. It’s not the alleged shortage of rice that should alarm us; it is the appalling shortage of sincerity and honesty in the government.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s solution to the so-called rice problem is straight from the Brothers Grimm, except that it’s grimmer. She would grant P500 a month to each of the 300,000 neediest families in the land to be determined by the barangay heads in their sole discretion. That discretion is presumed to be above board, based on their superior knowledge of who are the most impoverished residents in their community.
The first among the neediest will have to be the barangay head himself; that’s a given. The rest of the beneficiaries will have to be chosen on the strength of their connections with the political parties under Ms Arroyo. This qualification is likely to create disputes among the neighbors, but that is to be expected for this is a democracy. That is how it works in this country. And how long will this bonanza continue?
By expressing doubts about the gravity of the rice crisis, we do not mean to minimize the present food problem threatening the whole world, including the Philippines. But it is not our purpose either to maximize that difficulty as requiring our total attention to the neglect of other difficulties also demanding our serious concern. After all, man does not live by rice alone. There are goals we must also pursue like compassion for the poor, the protection of human rights, and the end of corruption in our government.
Have you noticed how, with the alarums raised by the administration about the rice problem, public interest has died down on the ZTE contract and its protected “Greedy People + + ”? Jonas Burgos is still missing after more than a year since his seizure in broad daylight by armed men. There is no more news either about the furtive delivery of enormous cash doles to selected beneficiaries in the halls of Malacañang itself.
Valid or not, the rice problem has proved the expertise of the GMA spinmasters in manipulating public opinion to suppress further exposés of government venalities. The Senate has meekly thrown in the towel although the Neri case has yet to be finally resolved by the Supreme Court. Have the Garci tapes been erased forever? What about the silenced Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante on the fertilizer fund? And are the plunder charges against the military generals moving at all? Ho-hum. Meanwhile, the media have nothing more serious to headline than that Cory is in the pink of health. — Isagani Cruz, Inquirer
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