There won’t be a shortage of rice—DA

The impact of the two recent typhoons, “Pedring” and “Quiel,” was the topic of last Monday’s Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel. Resource persons were former Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross; Agriculture Undersecretary Joel Rudinas; Deputy Customs Commissioner for Intelligence Danilo Lim; and Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr., the PNP spokesman.

First the good news: According to Rudinas, there will be no shortage of rice this year despite the damage wrought by the typhoons on palay and corn crops ready for harvest.  “We have enough rice stocks in the warehouses,” he said. “Prices shouldn’t go up. What little we will import will be just to replenish our stocks.”

Rudinas said ricefields can be plowed and planted as soon as the floodwaters recede. The new crop can be harvested in 120 days. So we would be back to normal in three months.

As for vegetables, they have rotted due to too much water. The vegetable gardens up in the mountains of Benguet, the vegetable bowl of the Philippines, were not flooded like the farms in the lowlands, but too much rain in the Cordilleras destroyed the crops. However, the vegetable growers can plant new seeds almost immediately, and they can be harvested in 30 to 60 days. Prices may increase slightly in the next several days, but prices will normalize in 30 days.

As for the vegetables grown in Batangas and Cavite like ampalaya, upo, eggplants and okra, they are more hardy than the leafy vegetables grown in Benguet (lettuce, pechay, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, green peas, strawberry, which are highly perishable) so the supply of the former shouldn’t be affected very much.

As for fish, fishermen should be out at sea now that the weather has improved, so the supply, and prices, of fish in the markets should be back to normal in a few days. However, there may be a slight shortage of milkfish and tilapia since a number of fishpens and fish cages have been damaged by the typhoons and floods.

Coconuts should be plentiful because the storms blew down most of the mature coconuts. So now is the time to cook that guinataan, laing, Bicol express, and other dishes using coconut milk.

Bananas and papayas will be in short supply within the next few weeks because Pedring and Quiel flattened many banana and papaya plants. However, pineapple is a hardy plant and its supply should not affected.

Lim said the Bureau of Customs seized a number of container vans of smuggled rice, sugar, and used clothes, and these can be distributed to flood victims if the bureau gets the permission to do so.

Now for the bad news: Gordon said that although the sun is already shining, worse things are to come. There will be more and stronger storms and higher floods as climate change wreaks havoc on us. The PNRC, the AFP and PNP personnel and NGOs are doing their best now to rescue and supply flood victims with food, water and clothes, but they won’t be enough in the future.

So he has proposed a volunteerism system where the people themselves will help one another in times of disasters. He calls his proposal “1-43,” which stands for one leader leading 43 volunteers in each barangay.

The leader will be a registered nurse (of which we have plenty) who will be trained in disaster rescue and relief. He/she will then train 43 volunteers in every barangay. Multiply 44 individuals with the number of barangays in the entire country and we would have an army of almost two million volunteers, Gordon said.

These volunteers will be the first to alert barangay residents to evacuate to safer places in times of disasters, take care of them in the evacuation centers and their health needs, and maintain order. They will convince their fellow barangay residents to leave for safer places and they will have volunteers to guard the abandoned homes from looters, one of the reasons flood victims refuse to leave their homes in spite of the danger.

Gordon also said we should have aluminum-bottomed boats for rescue operations. Rubber boats are impractical, he said, because they are punctured by submerged barbed wire fences and other sharp objects. He said a number of their rubber boats have been punctured and put out of commission.

Amphibian craft are also impractical because they cannot maneuver through the narrow roads of most rural barangays, Gordon added.

On the brighter side, Gordon said Red Cross workers have rescued and helped many flood victims. The PNRC has enough health workers and blood supply in case they are needed.

For his part, Cruz said hundreds of police personnel were also engaged in rescue and relief work in the flooded areas. Also, they maintained peace and order during the confused days of the typhoons. Crime was at its lowest during the typhoons and floods, he said. It was unlike the days in New Orleans when Typhoon “Katrina” slammed the city. Looters entered abandoned homes and stole everything they could carry. Filipinos are made of better stuff. Instead of looting, they help one another during times of emergencies.

Lim was asked what the BOC is doing about rampant smuggling in the customs zone. He replied that it was going after the smugglers. He also revealed that one of the reforms is to ban the media, the so-called “hao-shiaos,” from the customs zone since it was discovered that some of the smuggling was done with their help.

Do you know that there are 400 media people accredited at the customs, two press clubs, and 40 tabloids circulating only in the customs zone—more than all the reporters covering Malacañang and both Houses of Congress combined. What are they all doing there?