Commentary
Marikina revisited … and Payatas
By John J. Carroll, S.J.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:13:00 05/30/2008
The rice crisis or rice price crisis as some prefer to call it, has dropped off the front pages of the newspapers. But it is still very much present in the consciousness of the poor. Hear some comments of mothers of children in our feeding program in Payatas, Quezon City, translated into English.
“Nanay” [Mother] No. 1 has four children, three of whom are part of the feeding program: “Ever since the price of rice was increased, I only cook it for lunch and for dinner. I buy cooked viand (‘ulam’) worth P10. This is more economical than cooking at home. The six of us (my children, my husband and myself) just share. At night, I think of a way I can cook the one-fourth kilo of either fish or meat I buy, without using oil or other ingredients. For example, I just boil the fish in water and mix tomatoes and onions, sans vegetables. With meat, like ‘longganisa’ [native sausage], I just boil it and let it cook in its own oil.”
Nanay No. 2 has three children, one of whom is part of the feeding program. She says it has been difficult since the price of rice increased. The prices of other food items such as vegetables, meat, even oil also increased soon after the price of rice was hiked up. They used to have “merienda” [snack] before, but ever since the price of rice increased, only her children have merienda. People keep saying that she has lost weight, but for her, it is more important that her children are fed first. She has to be thrifty because they have to pay other bills and send money to her other children in the province. The feeding program has helped, because she doesn’t have to cook rice the whole day. When she is on duty, she saves the leftovers and her family eats them at night.
Nanay No. 3 has six children, three in the feeding program. She has no choice but to divide the one kilo of rice she cooks in the morning for breakfast and lunch so that she can save. She also buys cooked viands for her other children’s (those who are not part of the feeding program) lunch. She buys cooked viands for their dinner, ensuring that they fit within her budget of P10 to P20 for the family.
No. 4 has two children and two stepchildren in the province: “I buy five kilos of rice every time my husband receives his salary. We used to cook rice three times a day, but since its price has gone up, we cook rice only two times a day. We also stopped having snacks in the mid-afternoon. Because of the high price of rice, we sometimes fail to pay our bills. Until now, I haven’t paid our rent.”
And No. 5 has one child, who is part of the feeding program: “Ever since rice became more expensive, I line up for NFA rice [rice subsidized by the National Food Authority]. Doing this is a big hassle and has made things worse for me—I have to pay for transportation, line up under the intense heat of summer just so I can buy cheap rice.
Four of the five mothers interviewed buy NFA rice. The price ranges from P18 to P22 per kilo. All of them said that each “kilo” they buy weighs less than a kilo.
As I reflect on what these mothers and their families as well as mothers all over the country are going through, my memory drifts back to the year 1952 when I first lived on the Ateneo de Manila University campus at Loyola Heights. In the early morning, the Marikina Valley below would be wreathed in the white smoke of the cooking fires of the farmers living there, and we could smell the burning rice husks that they used for fuel. Right below us was Chirillo, where the Augustinian missionaries had discovered a community in the 1570s—river-dwellers (“taga-ilog”) and farmers attracted to the area by the rich soil and abundant water. In time, Marikina became the most prized hacienda in the country.
All of that is gone now. Houses and a spanking-new SM mall have replaced the farmland as far as the river and beyond, and this has something to do with the plight of our mothers in Payatas. Fine, arable, irrigated rice land has been eaten up by urbanization, not to mention golf courses and banana plantations.
We are trying to help out at Payatas with our feeding program for children. We buy commercial rice not only for the children’s lunch five days a week, but also for the mothers who do the cooking, selling it to the latter at the NFA price. This saves them the time which they would otherwise spend lining up for it, and gives them better quality rice and honest weight.
But the problem lies deeper than a spike in the price of rice. At the heart of it is a matter of social structure and, yes, values. Government policy has favored the urban consumer over the rural producer, the wealthy and powerful over the poor and powerless. As rice lands were being converted to other uses, there was a failure to develop irrigation and infrastructure in the remaining rural areas as well as to provide education and improved techniques for farmers. Per capita income in agriculture is a fraction of the national average, and many farmers have given up and fled to the cities. There have been other failures along the line, all together producing a situation where thousands of upscale restaurants do a thriving business while the mothers of Payatas skimp, and one-sixth of Filipino families have known hunger in recent months.
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Comments will be welcome at jcarroll@ateneo.edu.
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