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It is in
the heaving slums of
Asia, amid
sagging tin shacks and streets afloat with waste, that the
soaring global price for rice hits hardest.
Until last
week, Imelda Torreras had been able to count on peddling
small bags of rice to her neighbors in the putrid streets
of Manila’s Tondo district, a way to supplement her
family’s meager income as garbage brokers.
Now, the
rocketing price of rice has pushed her out of the food
business.
Customers
used to paying 65 cents for a kilo of rice, or 2.2 pounds,
have balked at increases that have pushed the price as
high as 90 cents, a swift and devastating rise for the
desperately poor.
“The price
I was paying the wholesalers was rising so fast I couldn’t
increase my own prices fast enough to keep up,” she said,
sitting in the entrance to her home as neighborhood
children tumbled in the mud around her. “People around
here won’t pay that kind of money for rice.”
The
Philippines, a country of more than 90 million people, is
the world’s largest rice importer. And the United Nations
World Food Program warned that rising food prices mean
Asia’s poorest risk a “silent famine.”
Indeed,
rice prices on commodity futures markets have more than
doubled in the last year. As with surging global wheat
prices, the increase has been blamed on several factors,
from rising transportation and fertilizer costs stemming
from record oil prices, to hoarding by wholesalers who
smell even bigger profits to be made down the road.
The
result, economists and aid workers warn, is that millions
of poor people may go hungry if the staple of their diet
is priced beyond reach. The most vulnerable are those
earning less than $2 a day, for whom even a small price
increase means the loss of a crippling chunk of disposable
income.
Philippine
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s government says it has
enough rice to meet domestic needs for the next two months
and dismisses warnings from some that higher rice prices
could lead to riots. But the government acknowledges that
it must secure 2.1 million tons of new orders by July.
Philippine
officials scoured global markets in a futile search to
fill an order of 500,000 tons. Such ominous signs are
behind the price jumps that are only beginning to touch
places like Tondo, which includes some of the capital’s
harshest slums.
The
problem in Tondo is not rice shortage. Rice is visible in
shops. And it is still boiled and sold by food vendors to
the ragged tribe of children and adults who spend their
days tearing apart garbage heaps in search of anything of
value. The problem is higher prices.
Many
people have turned to subsidized rice, which is sold from
public offices or from the backs of government trucks that
have begun showing up, without notice, in poor
neighborhoods. Government rice is sold at 37 cents a kilo,
though some Filipinos complain that the quality is poor.
“My
littlest one complains about the smell,” Torreras said.
Torreras,
her husband and the rest of their family know they eat
better than many in the neighborhood.
As brokers
in the garbage business, she and others like her get first
crack at a slum staple known as pagpag: the bits of
meat shaken from chicken bones found in the waste that is
dumped in the neighborhood by fast-food restaurants.
Pagpag can be repackaged or grilled again for resale.
This
making of a meal out of something so meager speaks to the
survival instincts of those who live in
Manila’s
slums.
Under a
searing sun, Jonathan Baupol breaks from sifting garbage
to buy lunch: a softball-sized bag of boiled rice that has
gone from 10 cents to 12 in the last few weeks.
Baupol has
no desire to follow government suggestions that he
substitute root vegetables or a bit of bread for a rice
meal. He expresses the widespread sentiment that rice is
as indispensable to a Filipino as oxygen.
“It makes
us feel weak when we don’t have it,” he said. “I’m still
eating the same amount.”
That
cultural attachment hints at the potential for unrest
should Filipinos have to slash their rice consumption.
Arroyo’s
government, already stained by allegations of endemic
corruption, didn’t endear itself to anyone with
suggestions that roadside food vendors and restaurants
halve the size of their rice portions as a way to reduce
demand.
Eager to
show she is on top of the crisis, Arroyo has instituted a
moratorium on commercial property developments such as
malls and golf courses that would encroach on farmlands.
And she has pledged that authorities will arrest and
punish anyone caught hoarding rice.
There was
widespread publicity given to a police raid in Manila that
uncovered a massive stockpile of rice and resulted in the
arrest of 13 suspects caught guarding the bags.
Critics
contend that hoarding remains endemic, carried out with
the complicity of corrupt government officials and the
police.
“They
publicize a few cases here and there, but we know people
are hoarding in the field,” said Wurie Alghassim, interim
country director for the World Food Program, which is
helping feed 1.6 million people on the southern island of
Mindanao, where the government is fighting a separatist
movement and Islamic extremists.
“It is
very clear in Mindanao there is no way they can arrest the
big hoarders,” Alghassim said. “The big guys are very well
connected.”
Arroyo is
also battling a deep well of skepticism in Manila. Many
residents blame her, not global markets, for the rice
crisis, insisting that only a lack of will prevents the
government from lowering prices. But as a mass importer,
the government is largely at the mercy of an international
market where supplies are tight and prices keep rising.
Filipinos
are also suspicious of Arroyo’s plan to introduce ration
cards for the poor. The cards are to be distributed
through local politicians, who, the government says, are
best placed to identify those in need. But many people see
this as an invitation to further corruption.
“Ration
cards might be a solution, but I don’t trust the barangay
officials to be fair and honest about it,” Marlon Santos
said, referring to neighborhood politicians.
The
32-year-old says he eats bread for breakfast to help
stretch his extended family’s limited money. Adjustments
have been manageable for now, he says. Fewer snacks. No
new T-shirts. But he doesn’t rule out the possibility of
unrest, or violence, if things get worse.
“Rice is
something you need every day,” Santos said. “When it gets
to the point that families can’t afford to buy 2 kilos a
day, that’s when people will get really mad.” |
