LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Embarrassing representative to ICJ
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:46:00 05/10/2008
To stanch the financial hemorrhage at the National Food Authority, Sen. Edgardo Angara proposed that the grains agency get out of the business of importing rice and focus on providing price support for rice and corn farmers and on maintaining a buffer stock for emergencies.
He said the importation and trading of rice would be better left to the private sector, which could do a better job of it. “If private traders are allowed to import and sell rice without restrictions, the supply and price of rice will stabilize,” Angara predicted. “More importantly, smuggling, corruption and hoarding will be eliminated.”
If President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo only read the newspapers, she would come across so many suggestions that she could be put together in order to come up with a very good strategy to solve the rice crisis.
What are her Cabinet officials doing?
Also, it will be a dishonor to the country if the President insists on the nomination of Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago to the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ). The senator did not do her fellow Filipinos justice when she insulted members of Congress and called them names.
She could easily have expressed, politely and with diplomacy, her thoughts on a Senate inquiry into the rice crisis, but she chose to be rude and acerbic in her language. Unless she changes that part of her attitude—her bullying and belittling everybody—she will be an embarrassing representative of the Philippines to that international court.
TERESITA UY, Auckland, New Zealand
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