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With the
looming price rises in oil and other products bandied
about for the next six weeks, as well as the lengthening
queues of buyers of government rice, the country’s poor
may have to come up with novel ways of coping with the
upward spiral of prices of most commodities.
The need
to possibly substitute rice with potatoes or corn, which
can be had for P20 a kilo, or of kamote at half that
price, is one way of addressing the situation. The
problem, though, is that it would take more than
economics to wean away the populace from their
rice-eating habits.
Sadly,
the government has to come up with a more vigorous way
of addressing the rice situation, beyond raiding rice
hoarders or announcing a liberalized rice-importation
program. As for the oil nightmare, with the price of oil
not bucking down to below $100 a barrel, the government
will have to open up more oil-drilling fronts that the
country may yet be sufficient in oil. Offshore Palawan,
which has proven itself to be an oil province, should
hum with more drilling activities so that more oil zones
can be discovered.
The
unabated price rise in oil and other products, such as
LPG, is the biggest factor in the similar uptick in the
price of chicken, pork, bread, cooking oil, sardines and
other commodities. Without that oil factor, the country
can rest easy and the Bangko Sentral need not recast its
inflation-targeting program to cope with the price
situation. The inflation outlook does not augur well for
Juan de la Cruz, whose savings are eaten up by
inflation.
Perhaps
the government can once again revisit its Oil-Price
Stabilization Fund that allowed for the smoothening out
of the oil-price surges. This fund is replenished when
the oil price falls below a certain trigger price and is
used to reimburse the oil majors on the difference
between the higher oil price prevailing in the world
market and the trigger price. Taking care of the
oil-price situation would give enough cushion for the
government to address other problems such as the rice
crisis now obtaining in the land.
And yet,
for the poor folks, there are enough alternative choices
to address the food crisis. We received an e-mail from
the People Food Summit that sought to come up with a
plan to remedy the burgeoning food crisis. Among their
recommendations are:
•
Setting up of a nationwide—parish by parish or community
by community—emergency food assistance and job-creation
program for the poor, the unemployed and those barely
making both ends meet. Given the extreme volatilities in
the food market, the poor deserve not only protection
from hoarders but also guarantees that they have access
to affordable food items at any given time.
•
Leading the campaign for the early planting of rice and
other essential crops so that harvesting shall coincide
with the historical lean months for these commodities.
•
Initiating a massive food-production program in cities
and provinces. Instead of identifying the so-called idle
lands for big agribusiness ventures (foreign and local),
the government should encourage the landless urban and
rural poor to undertake the development of these lands
for food production.
•
Immediate stabilization of the food markets by cracking
down on hoarders; conduct of a nationwide inventory of
rice and other food products; making the National Food
Authority (NFA) the price leader in the trading of
commodities experiencing market volatility; and
centralizing through the NFA the importation and
distribution of essential or staple food items.
•
Suspension of the biofuels program, which competes
directly with food production. Its revival should be
subject to a multisectoral consultation and rigorous
assurance that such a program is not food-displacing.
•
Adjustment of workers’ wages to enable them to cope with
the rising food prices. Such wage adjustments should be
across-the-board and national in coverage, with
no-ceiling-no-exemption conditionalities. Income tax for
ordinary wage workers should be suspended, too,
according to the summit recommendations.
These
recommendations could serve as talking points for the
government’s eventual program of addressing the food
crisis. It could also lead to the dismantling of the
costly rice subsidy that the government undertakes via
the NFA and which negates the privatization efforts of
the government. The food crisis should not be allowed to
fester as it affects the majority of the populace. As
for the oil crisis, the government can always turn to
private firms to undertake investments in oil
prospecting.
E-mail: hugagni@yahoo.com |
