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If you
were appalled by the diatribes issued sometime back by
Senate national broadband network (NBN)-ZTE witness Jun
Lozada Jr. against Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal
Vidal, accusing the good bishop of banning the clergy
from welcoming him to Cebu and, worse, being the
overseer of the “Archdiocese of Malacañang,” a charge
which was roundly denounced as untrue and uncalled for
even by the priests and nuns in his own welcoming
committee, then you better brace for the guy’s latest
tantrumatic utterances.
Lozada,
who was on his way to Baguio City last week in the
company of some groups out to denounce the Supreme Court
over its decision on the issue of executive privilege,
was quoted as having said that the government was
manipulating the rice crisis in order to ease him and
his “search for truth” operation out of the media
limelight.
Whew!
Manipulating the looming food crisis to ease him out of
the public eye? What a twisted sense of self-importance.
The guy must really be delusionary and living in another
world. The looming crisis is for real, and he better
believe it.
Unless,
as seems to be his drift, he is now bent on denying this
fact even as it stares him in the face. If he does that,
and I won’t be surprised if he goes down that road, then
it would be in character as he has been fast and loose
with the facts, dates and figures he issued in his
showbiz kind of recollection about the aborted NBN-ZTE
deal.
Indeed,
it will truly be unfortunate if he insists on seeing
things his mangled way. After all, whether one likes him
or not, the guy has given some leads into the whys and
wherefores of this canceled operation which, hopefully,
can be properly used to tighten the rules and open up
the processes involving the secretive multimillion-
dollar official development assistance deals which the
country has been entering into all these years.
But to
see conspiracy where there is none and throw a tantrum
not just on the media but on the public as well for
“being eased out of the limelight” is much too much.
If
Lozada and his loyal retinue only have to ease up on
their obsessive cravings for the limelight, as seems to
be their beef, they will realize that there is indeed a
looming global food crisis which the country needs to
attend to.
Not that
their “search for truth” is unimportant, but they have
to realize that this is one concern which, at this time
and probably even for the foreseeable future, will
require more of our time, energy and attention than the
aborted NBN-ZTE deal issue.
There is
a looming crisis out there which, if left unattended to
by all concerned, will ultimately drown all other
issues, including those which have percolated around the
ways and practices by which Lozada and his loyalists
have been driving their advocacies all over the place.
To be
sure, the looming crisis is global and was not invented
just to “cover up the sins” of this administration. For
years on end we have been witness to chronic hunger in
parts of Africa, to devastating floods and destruction
in the plains of Bangladesh and to aridity in some of
the more productive lands in
Asia and Africa
as a result of global warming and the like.
In a
word, the possibility of a global food crisis has always
been hanging over our heads even before Lozada and
company cast moist eyes on the NBN-ZTE deal and others
of their fancy.
No less
than the leaders of a host of countries, including the
US, China and the European Union; and key officials of
the world’s leading institutions such as the World Bank,
International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization; and even international
relief agencies like Oxfam, have sounded the alarm over
the tightening food- supply situation.
In the
recent meeting of finance ministers in Washington, D.C.,
the warning was sounded that “surging food costs
threaten to reverse progress on poverty reduction. . .
and may even lead to hunger and civil disorder in a lot
of countries. . . .”
Speaking
in the same conference, German Economy Minister
Heidemarie Wieczrnrek Zeul noted that “for every
percentage increase in food prices, an additional 16
million people are threatened with hunger. . . ,” a
prognosis shared by World Bank president Robert Zoellick,
who echoed his staff’s assessment that a doubling of
food prices in the past three years could push 100
million people deeper into poverty.
The
conference noted that a total and comprehensive global
response to food production and rising food prices was
imperative.
This
full response could begin with rice which is the staple
for half the world’s population.
If
Lozada has not realized it yet, or refuses to admit so,
the price of rice has surged 96 percent in the past
year, reaching a record $20.60 per 100 pound on April 4.
Rice futures for May delivery rose by as much as $2.07
to $22.67 per 100 pound, resulting from our own rising
demand which the government deems critical to ensure
that we have a steady supply of the staple through the
lean months.
That is
only for rice. What about the other staples—cooking oil,
sugar, meat and the like—all of which will require
sustained and proper production and distribution if we
are to keep the country standing and our people’s body
and soul together?
For
Lozada to feign otherwise, to discredit the sense of
urgency associated with the looming food crisis or,
worse, dismiss it as a “conspiracy to ease him out of
the limelight” is truly pathetic, displays a warped
sense of the world and is downright wrong.
Wrong
also on Subic and Nlex extension
Speaking
of other wrongs, it is well that Sen. Dick Gordon has
admitted that the construction of the Hyundai Apartments
in Subic adhered to the rules on such undertaking.
That
rush to judgment, as it were, on his and Sen. Loren
Legarda’s part admonishing the present Subic Bay
Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) leadership and even former
SBMA chairman and administrator Tong Payumo for allowing
the construction was proven wrong.
It is
good such was acknowledged in time. That could have been
avoided had the current SBMA administration told the
senators that the project got approvals properly and
that Payumo was already out of
Subic when said approvals were given. Sayang.
But it
would have been even better had the SBMA directed the
Hyundai people to build in another SBMA area and decided
to maintain the integrity, no matter how fragile it has
become, of the forest reserve abutted by the apartment
complex.
And
since we are already talking about construction, we are
being besieged by calls for us to look into the
memorandum of agreement between the Department of Public
Works and Highways and a group of Filipino contractors
for the extension of the North Luzon Expressway (Nlex)
from Tarlac to Rosario, La Union.
A lot of
questions have been thrown at this proposed undertaking,
the most basic of which is why the extension will only
be two lanes when the entire Nlex is already a four- or
even six-lane toll way. This change may engender more
problems than the proponents and their well-meaning
patrons in government can probably answer. We will get
to this matter and other collateral issues on this vital
infrastructure soon.
E-mail: emman_delacruz@yahoo.com. |
