Viewpoint
Recovered harvests
By Juan L. MercadoWasting food is “like stealing from tables of the poor,” Pope Francis told a UN World Environment Day audience. “A culture of waste… is despicable when many suffer from hunger.”
Wasting food is “like stealing from tables of the poor,” Pope Francis told a UN World Environment Day audience. “A culture of waste… is despicable when many suffer from hunger.”
The March 19-22 Social Weather Stations survey showing a rise in the number of Filipinos experiencing hunger tells a lot about the efforts of the Aquino administration in trying to stay true to its slogan, “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”
Naty has not heard or read about the Marcoses, Estradas, Binays and Ampatuans wresting election victory. She is a 53-year-old beggar who looks a haggard 80. What matters is even leftover food, she shrugs.
The raid on Tuesday of the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Davao City would not have happened had national and local officials been sensitive to the situation of the survivors of Typhoon “Pablo” from Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental. Complaining of hunger and neglect, the survivors belonging to the group Barug Katawhan forced their way into the office and made off with sacks of rice and other relief goods. (Spokesperson Karlos Trangia was reported as assiduously listing the stuff carted away, from 52 sacks of rice down to a single can of biscuits.) The police later wrested back the goods taken, resulting in injuries to a number of people.
Cheese corn—it’s one of the comfort foods that a typical University of the Philippines student like me, or maybe even people not in UP, can relate to. I think no one can resist boiled corn kernels in a soup oozing with melted margarine and cheese powder. Om nom nom, indeed. But to be honest, I kind of don’t want to see the cheese corn vendor anymore.
Like in 2011, hunger and poverty happened to move in opposite directions over two successive quarters. Two weeks ago, the BusinessWorld headline was “Fewer families go hungry” (1/7/13); this week BW said “More Filipino families view themselves as poor” (1/14/13). These reports were based on comparisons of the latest two SWS surveys, showing a drop in hunger by almost 5 points, and a rise in poverty by 7 points, over the third and fourth quarters of 2012.
One million less Filipino families experienced hunger in the fourth quarter compared to the third, Social Weather Stations reported recently. Hunger incidence dropped to 16.3 percent of our families, a steep decline of almost 5 percentage points from 21 percent, SWS reported in August.
Walang tutong sa taong nagugutom, a Filipino proverb says. “There’s no burnt rice to a hungry person.”
“Food is the new oil and land the new gold,” says Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown. The altered weather, dry wells and food needs of larger populations interlock in a struggle for arable land and water. Meet the “new geopolitics of food scarcity.”
One of my readers, a Filipino-American who prefers to be called Mrs. G for now, recently offered to extend scholarships to two students in my college. After she wrote one of the students informing him of the scholarship, he was ecstatic and wrote back, “Now I can eat properly and not be hungry every month.” [...]
How do Filipinos in general rate their conditions and their government as of the first half of 2012, according to the Social Weather Stations surveys?
A previous piece, “Undeserved unhappiness” (Inquirer, 3/24/2012), pointed out that measuring how many are happy simultaneously measures how many are unhappy with their lives in general. It then showed the strong connections of unhappiness to poverty and hunger, based on SWS surveys of 2000-2011.
