Scr*w this “unprecedented” rice shortage. This is the kind of shit that you can’t blame to the Spanish, Japanese, and American occupation or to globalization anymore. The Philippines as one of the supposed top rice producers of the world is having a huge shortage of rice to feed our population. We’re the home of the International Rice Research Institute and we have a rice shortage. No pointing out of ironies needed. This is a case of SATFU (situation abnormal totally f*cked up).

The continued existence of haciendas and the failure of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) is something that we can’t really blame on to others. Sure, we can still point out the whole history of agrarian f*ck ups our country has to go through but it has been more than 100 years since Spain left our soil so we really can’t still blame the encomienda system for our agricultural woes. The failures in agrarian reforms are failure of governance.

For decades, the government failed to respond to the needs of farmers. And now, just because a kilo of rice is going to rival the price of a liter of gasoline, the president releases 1.5B to be spent on rice production. I guess our government has never really learned “Prevention is better than cure” adage.

What incentive is there for farmers to farm anyway? Many farmers are just kasamas and pahinantes in farms of either wealthy families or haciendero clans. The rising cost of overhead, the uncertainty of harvest, and the minimal returns have prompted many landowners to just sell their farms to be converted to real estate – subdivisions at the outskirts of the metro for the yuppie family and the nouveau riche. The government blames mostly this.

And why? To shift blame of course. Take a look at the profile of those people in the government – people who hail fromhaciendero clans mostly. Same people who have bled our farmers dry. Same people who sap the will of the people to toil Philippine soil.

More than a 100 years, people.

Check out these other posts:

1. Even ‘patis’ gets ‘pirated’
2. And we’ll have a BPO worker shortage