Rep. Juan “Jack” Ponce Enrile Jr. of the First District of Cagayan province warned that news reports of calamity victims in Davao Region and other victims of super-typhoon Pablo (international codename: Bopha), who were stopping ‘food convoys’ in the streets to force authorities to give them food, may be a “taste of worse things to come,” unless the government immediately takes action to address the problem of food availability.

“In the aftermath of the massive devastation brought by Super Typhoon Pablo in large areas of Mindanao, it breaks one’s heart to see in the news our countrymen now going to the extent of stopping ‘food convoys’ and begging along roadsides so they can have even one kilo of rice to tide them and their families for a day.

“In a country blessed with fertile soil and other resources, it is distressing to realize that we can be reduce to the level of some African nations where people risks getting run over by food convoys so they can have food to fill their hungry stomach,” said Enrile.

“And unless we come up with a definite ‘national food action plan’ to address the problem of food availability and access by those in critical need of them, we may just be seeing a taste of more worse things to come when civility and discipline breaks down.

“As the saying goes, a hungry stomach knows no law,” Enrile added.

Along this line, Enrile, an advocate of food sovereignty through genuine agricultural development and a leading senatorial candidate of the United Nationalist Alliance, urges his colleagues in Congress and the executive branch to support House Bill 4626 that he filed to address the problem.

The bill seeks to create a comprehensive “national framework” to address not only the lack of capacity to grow and supply food in areas hard hit by natural disasters such as typhoons but also seeks to boost agricultural development in the countryside.

“More importantly, it seeks to establish measures that would guarantee sufficient and ready access to vital food stuffs in affected areas such those devastated by typhoon Pablo in Mindanao,” the lawmaker said.

Enrile filed the bill on May 11, 2011 and he has since then been seeking bipartisan support for its immediate passage to due to its importance and relevance to current events.

“Repeated disasters that we are experiencing right now should not only be a wake-up call to all of us,” Enrile stressed.