Those are the infamous words supposedly uttered by Marie Antoinette in response to the hungry French masses looking for bread. Her husband the king’s reign was soon overthrown. Later in her life, Marie Antoinette was beheaded.
Food is an extremely important element in a society. The abundance of it can result to a strong and productive community, while the scarcity of it can drive a people to oust its government.
Today, the country, together with the world, is facing a debilitating food crisis. With more mouths to feed and less food to go around, food has become a prized commodity. In the Philippines, high prices, long lines for cheap NFA rice, and accounts of hoarding have been commonplace.
This is an irony in our country where rice is a staple food. This is a joke to a country that’s supposed to be leading in terms of rice research, since the International Rice Research Institute is located here.
We are importing rice. We are one of the world’s top importers of rice, and recently, in light of the global food crisis, we had to convince Thailand to export rice to us just so we could meet our supply.
The Philippines is regarded as an agricultural country, but it is weak in rice production and it is not self-sufficient. About thirty years ago, however, it was.
Our country is supposed to prioritize rice, and following that, our farmers. Just this month, Congress failed to extend, for another five years, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which aims to distribute privately-owned lands to farmers.
Is this a country that knows its priorities?
Imports, cheap NFA rice, or maybe even subsidies won’t help solve the crisis; it will only provide temporary answers to problems that should have long-term solutions. The government does not seem to realize that we need lasting solutions to our food and oil crisis.
Instead, it settles for what we call panawid-gutom. Something to make people quiet for a while. Something to satisfy right away, right now.
We are in that state of bridging hunger. This country is not satisfied. Unless the government thinks of a concrete, strong solution to this crisis, they might just end up overthrown—and if worse comes to worse, beheaded.
