Theres The Rub
She dunnit
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:57:00 04/29/2008
One remark I've been hearing these last few weeks is: There's no rice crisis, it's an artificial problem manufactured by dubious groups for dubious ends. Quite funnily, I've heard it from government's defenders and detractors alike. Government's defenders, like the League of Provinces of the Philippines, which made its sentiments known in a costly ad in this newspaper, say the harvests are bountiful; the usual suspects or critics are just making a big fuss about a temporary shortfall. Detractors, like the “istambay” [idle bystanders] who drink in my neighborhood, say the rice is there, it's just being manipulated by the usual suspects or crooks in government who want to make another killing.
You can't blame the public for harboring the second thought. Government's credibility is about as solid as today's “pan de sal” bun. And true enough, the rice crisis is due in part to corruption. But there is a rice crisis in the country as surely as there is a moral crisis in the Catholic Church today. We face a bane today that has no end in sight as surely as we face a rule that has no end in sight-unless we do something about it.
Ironically, it was Joseph Estrada who in a moment of inspired madness or brilliant clowning said it best: We don't just have a rice shortage, we have a truth shortage. And both are the handiwork of "Shorty."
The crisis is visible to the naked eye in the rice lines that have sprouted all over Metro Manila and elsewhere, the poor and desperate waiting for hours just to get a kilo of rice from the National Food Authority, devising all sorts of stratagems to get past the restriction, and being threatened with dire consequences for their pains. Some government (and Church) officials prefer to be cute and call it a "rice price crisis" and not a "rice crisis" pointing out that there is no shortage of rice, prices are just going up. The distinction is silly. It's Economics 101: Things that are plentiful are cheap, things that are scarce are dear. When prices go up, you can be sure the item is getting scarce. In short, in short supply. In short, a shortage.
The shortage is not artificial. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will have everyone understand that fact. "One thing is certain, the world has consumed more (food) than it has produced over the last three years." Other figures show it's over the last five years, the shortfall made up for by grain reserves. Consequently, the cost of food has risen by 40 percent worldwide since the middle of last year. Riots and protests have broken out in countries like Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Haiti and Egypt. Countries like Vietnam and Thailand have restricted their rice exports.
Now how can a country that is the biggest importer of rice in Asia possibly not be affected by this situation? There is a rice crisis, and we're smack in the middle of it.
Who dun this?
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo dunnit.
She's not the hero of this movie, however much she tries to cut that figure, being seen and heard warning hoarders of dire fates to befall them. She is the villain. She is not the cure, she is the disease. She has caused this economic crisis as surely as she has caused this country's political, moral, and mental crises. She has done so in two ways:
First, directly, by unleashing a policy that has doomed food production and given this country to gaze at the specter of hunger. More than any previous ruler, she's the one who has trusted willy-nilly in the omniscience of global markets. We laugh at religious fanatics for believing Providence will provide everything, yet we have never laughed at economic fanatics for believing the World Market will provide everything. Gloria's father, Diosdado, wrecked Philippine industry by unleashing decontrol, which posited that it was cheaper to import manufactured goods than produce them. Gloria has wrecked Philippine agriculture by unleashing her own version of decontrol, which posited that it was cheaper to import rice than produce it. The only thing they proved was that words are cheap. In the long run, imported rice and manufactures are not cheaper, they are dearer. And in more ways than one.
Arroyo did not begin the policy of importing rice, but she's the one who has built an altar to it. In 2001, we were importing only 700,000 metric tons of rice; this year we will be importing 2.2 million. No way can she blame that on Fidel Ramos and Estrada. That is her watch. Her logic is that it's cheaper to buy rice from countries like Vietnam and Thailand, which enjoy natural irrigation from the Mekong River, than to spend on local farmers to allow them to produce enough rice to feed the hungry.
That logic the NGOs and farmers groups have vehemently disputed all these years. To begin with, they say, the rice market is fickle: Only 10 percent of rice produced globally is being sold, and only by six countries to 35 countries. It's not just that the supply is limited, it's that the sellers can always dictate prices. Little supply plus big demand equals high prices. Quite apart from that, they say, other countries, including those pushing for globalization, have insisted on subsidizing their agriculture even if they could get their food more cheaply elsewhere. Why the hell shouldn't we? Only a fool entrusts his most basic need in the hands of other people when he has the power to meet it.
Arroyo refused to listen. Today, she remains adamant in trying to solve the crisis by aggressively—and now expensively—trying to procure as much rice as she can from foreign sources. Her government is set to spend P58.7 billion for this just to cover the current shortage, roughly the same amount the farmers need in irrigation to produce enough rice to feed us. That brings us to the other problem, the flipside of an implacable mindset of importation:
The policy of utterly neglecting the farmers.
To be concluded
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