|
The government on Monday demanded a
definition of terms from its critics, particularly those who said
that the country faces a rice—if not food—crisis.
“We must define
crisis, it is easy to sensationalize the issue of food security by
coming up with doomsday scenarios and cute one-liners, but the
President is acting positively and with resolve to address these
concerns,” said Lorelei Fajardo, deputy press secretary.
Fajardo was
reacting to a statement made last week by Sen. Manuel “Mar”
Roxas 2nd, who said President Gloria Arroyo is on a denial mode for
saying there is no rice crisis.
Roxas also on
Monday warned that the country may be in for a “perfect storm”
without a concrete survival plan, as he expressed concern over
rising oil and rice prices, a recession in the United States, and a
global food shortage that could greatly erode people’s purchasing
power.
Roxas, in a
statement, noted that besides the supposedly looming food crisis,
Filipinos are also confronted with high oil prices aggravated by a
possible slowdown in dollar remittances from Filipinos in the US.
Still, Fajardo
insisted that the government critics, instead of harping on such
supposed crisis, should help the administration mitigate the impact
of the world economic downtrend.
“We call on the
detractors of this administration to conduct themselves as
statesmen, who in this time of concern must help our government to
find the solutions to help ease any effect of the world economic
downtrend,” she said.
“They
[opposition] should rally the people to work with the government and
so that we may all overcome these challenges,” Fajardo added.
The government,
according to Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., should show the
way, by being a judicious spender of taxpayers’ money.
Also on Monday,
Villar, in another statement, pushed wise and transparent government
spending on agriculture to address a lot of farmers’ woes that
“could have prevented the looming crisis on Filipinos’ staple
grain.”
“Government
should spend tax pesos on irrigation, so more lands can be opened up
for multiyear cropping; on post-harvest facilities, so palay already
produced will not be wasted; and on roads, so palay and rice can be
cheaply brought to the markets,” he said.
Villar said,
“15 percent of the country’s palay harvest are lost to lack of
dryers, warehouses, and post-harvest facilities, a volume that could
feed 12.5 million Filipinos for a year.”
This, he said,
was equivalent to 1.494 million metric tons, or 1.494 billion kilos,
of rice wasted in 2006, when national palay harvest reached 15.327
million metric tons.
“Because an
average Filipino consumes 118.7 kilos of rice annually, the rice
lost would have been able to meet the rice needs of Metro Manila for
one year,” Villar added.
He said the
country is also paying a high price for neglecting palay
post-harvest technology. Villar added that the value of such rice
losses amounted to a staggering P37.3 billion, based on the
prevailing P25 per kilo price of the national staple.
He said the 2008
national budget allocated a “measly” P336 million for
post-harvest facilities, “which is less than 1 percent of our
projected rice import bill this year.”
“If we are
going to buy two million metric tons of rice abroad at a cost of
$600 or P24,600 per metric ton, that will be P49.2 billion, which is
146 times than our annual post-harvest budget,” Villar added.
The government is
paying attention, Fajardo said. She added that President Arroyo
already released P1.5 billion to boost rice production especially in
the top 10 poorest provinces as well as to create new jobs.
 --Angelo
S. Samonte
|
