There have been bountiful harvests in Nueva Ecija, Aurora Province is exporting rice, and on April 8 it was reported that a bumper crop was expected in Mindanao. Panay Island has benefited from the rain-inducing La Niña weather phenomenon, so farmers are already on their second planting, which means three (instead of the usual two) crops for this year. This, regional officials say, is enough to ensure ample supply for the entire Visayas. But announcement comes on the heels of a disturbing development.

When Bohol province?s Gov. Eric Aumentado, a vocal ally of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, prohibited Bohol rice traders from selling Bohol-grown rice to neighboring provinces, he might have been trying to do two things. First, paper over local problems, such as farmers complaining that having to share their harvests with landlords makes rice a losing proposition, financially; and second, part of the traditional antagonisms between Bohol and Cebu province. However, the Bohol provincial government has begun mobilizing resources to help farmers with financing for seeds, and it seems allegations of one trader monopolizing the buying of ?palay? [rice before milling] are being looked into as well.

But the every-province-for-itself mentality is spreading, which is dangerous. Along with Aumentado, there was Sorsogon?s Gov. Sally Lee infuriating Albay?s Gov. Joey Salceda whose province is grappling with supply shortages. And Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, too, grumbled about not exporting rice.

We do not question the right, indeed, the obligation, of provincial chief executives to attend to the food security of their provinces, and then working together with other provinces to ensure regional food security, as well. However, fire-breathing language and provincial government decrees that exclude outsiders from access to provincial granaries are something else. They foster hoarding and panic buying; they add to a national sense of being besieged, and do no one any good.

What is particularly disturbing about this to-hell-with-everybody-else rhetoric of some governors is that it?s taking place without the President doing anything about it. To be sure, politics is a thankless profession, and the keen pragmatist (often verging on being a cynic) that she is, the President, who has perfected transactional politics, knows a provincial nabob?s thank you is as good only as the date of the latest check signed by the Department of Budget and Management. But still, considering how both the President and the governors have insisted over the years that theirs is some sort of enlightened partnership, it speaks volumes of the President?s brittle hold over even her most vocal allies that they see no problem with adding to her woes in order to pander to their own constituents.

The President has been busy trying to mobilize Catholic parishes as a kind of ad hoc distribution network, but the governors? rhetoric points to her inability to marshal resources, an important aspect of her job as chief executive. The announcement, for example, that the Visayas, at least, can look forward to food security, should have been trumpeted as an achievement (which it is). The sensible next step would have been for the President to say that since the Visayas will be OK, she can then focus government?s resources on ensuring adequate supplies?including importation?for other areas with a rice deficit.

The government has taken a shotgun approach: speaking of, and dealing in, mind-boggling quantities of imported rice even as the public wonders if the government isn?t engaging in hoarding of its own on a national scale.

Flooding the country with imported rice proves that the President is doing something on a massive and therefore impressive scale. But it is a fair question to ask if it isn?t an extravagant approach to what could be managed with more scientific solutions to the supply shortfall. A meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council at the Palace is necessary and appropriate; a corresponding conference with governors is long overdue.

And this, to us, points to the heart of the problem: Throwing money at the problem can create as many problems as it originally solves. People will long remember that in a time of shortage, the instinct of many leaders was to be hostile to their neighbors.