On Rice Shortage

For the past few days, reading the news or watching late night news programs has been really frustrating. There are a lot of issues on rice shortage in the Philippines, and the government claims that this shortage is normal because of a global crisis. Add the fact that there is a population growth in the country, the basic law of supply and demand is definitely applied in the current rice shortage situation. The Arroyo administration is willing to "spend" Php32 billion for rice procurement and for ensuring that there is enough supply of rice for every hungry mouth in the Philippines. Wow, yay. Should we go out and rejoice then?

You gotta be kidding. What the hell has happened to our rice? Aren't we an agricultural country, and isn't the Philippines claimed to be one of the more abundant rice producers of the world? Why are we then importing rice from the US?? Of all countries, the US!?! The "rice crisis" should have been an opportunity for agricultural countries such as the Philippines. This is where other countries would demand rice, and prices should go high, and we should have been able to benefit from that. We could've been rich, or at least pay most of our debts. But instead we're spending a big PHP32 Billion for rice! How ironic is that!?

Sigh. If only we invested on technology to enhance agricultural productivity. What did we do? Well, maybe you should look at the bellies of the clowns sitting in our government offices.