MANILA, Philippines - Members of the Commission on Appointments are ganging up on Sen. Jamby Madrigal (“like the mafia,” according to her) for invoking Section 20 of the CA rules which allows a CA member to move for the suspension of action on any appointment. They called her all sorts of names. Agusan del Sur Rep. Rodolfo Plaza said “her mouth works faster than her brain.” A congressman said “This woman is really crazy” and a senator told the generals whose confirmations had been blocked by Madrigal’s move: “There are really plenty of crazy people in the Senate.”

I think these comments are all foul. Instead of showing up Madrigal, they have boomeranged on those who uttered them. They showed what kind of men they are. Chivalry is dead in Congress.

Some senators even moved to amend Section 20. But Rep. Roman Romulo said “you cannot change the rules in the middle of the game” just to please 24 generals. And in the first place, why did they put the rule there if it cannot be invoked by a member of the CA?

And why the anger? The confirmations of the 24 generals were not rejected; action was just suspended. The CA can vote on them when next it meets. So what’s the big deal?

Senator Madrigal herself has an explanation: Congressmen’s support for officials’ confirmation are on a “pay-per-promotion” basis. Well said. It is common knowledge that some cliques in Congress are glorified extortion syndicates.

Another observer has a more macabre explanation: “Maybe they [the senators and congressmen] just want to be sure they won’t be shot along with the others in case there is a military coup.”

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Speaking of coups, yesterday was the best time to launch one. Everybody, including generals, soldiers and policemen were glued to their television sets watching the Pacquiao-Marquez bout. Nobody would have noticed the troop movements. Even better, most of the country’s top officials, including Vice President Noli de Castro, were in Las Vegas spending the people’s money to watch and bet on the fight. (Had Pacquiao lost, the Philippine treasury would have been that much poorer from the bets lost.) All the plotters had to do was stop them from coming home.

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There is no rice shortage—at present, Administrator Jessup Navarro of the National Food Authority (NFA) told the Kapihan sa Sulo last Saturday. There are enough rice stocks, he said. What’s more, the rice harvest is just coming in during the summer months. The crisis is in the high prices of rice now and in the supply during the lean months.

We usually augment domestic supply through imports—mainly from Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and China. But now these countries have little to export, Navarro said. Vietnam, for example, can commit only two-thirds of what it used to sell to the Philippines. There is a worldwide shortage because people are eating less corn and bread (the world is also producing less corn and wheat) and shifting to rice, the NFA administrator said.

Why can’t the Philippines produce enough rice for its population? Because of dwindling rice fields, said Navarro. Rice farms in Central Luzon, the former rice granary, have been converted into residential subdivisions, golf courses and shopping malls. Also, farmers are shifting to other cash crops because there is little profit in rice farming. Cost of fertilizer is too high and market prices are too low. Consumers should pay for the cost of production but poor families can’t afford high-priced rice.

If rice farms are dwindling in Luzon, there is plenty of land in Mindanao, Congressman Plaza of Agusan del Sur said. In his province alone, there are thousands of hectares of land that can be converted into rice fields but the national government is doing nothing about it, he said.

So what are the congressmen of Agusan doing to develop more rice farms? he was asked.

That is the job of the national government, he answered. The provincial governments do not have the funds for that.

What about the pork barrel?

I spend all my pork barrel on concrete roads, he replied.

But farmers cannot plant on concrete. You have to choose: roads or rice? You want more rice, spend for more rice farms. Simple, “di ba”?

Is it true that NFA rice is being diverted to the rice cartel, Navarro was asked.

He admitted that because of the high price of commercial rice, NFA retailers are selling their rice allocations as commercial rice at much higher prices. NFA rice is supposed to be sold only at P18.25 per kg. He asked the public to help monitor the activities of rice merchants, especially in Metro Manila and calamity-stricken areas in the province. NFA is fielding additional enforcement teams nationwide, he said. Monitoring activities will minimize if not totally eradicate rice diversion, he added.

Navarro said he has already ordered an investigation into the alleged diversion of 120,000 sacks of rice in Northern Mindanao. He also revealed that he has reshuffled NFA field executives, from provincial managers to provincial directors. While the reshuffle is not related to the reported rice diversion, he said it is being regularly done to preempt the development of closer relationship or familiarity between NFA executives and grains retailers.

He said that the NFA apprehended 98 violators of various offenses in 2007. Criminal charges have been filed against them and their rice allotments cancelled. Their licenses will also be revoked.

And do you know that 25,000 sacks of rice, worth P30 million, are being wasted each day because of leftover rice being thrown away or fed to pets?