BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
THE RISING cost of food affects everybody and we need to be aware that there are many processors and traders adding their mark-up to the price of food coming from the grower to the consumer. That’s why growing your own vegetables is a great way to save money and guarantee they are fresh and organic for a healthier life.
If we eat Philippine rice, then it was likely grown by some of the 2.4 million poor Filipino rice farmers and they earned an average 285 to 331 pesos a day growing and harvesting it. That is US$6 a day. Is that fair earning?
The Philippine population is 115 million and 14.2 percent or 17 million Filipinos go hungry most days, according to a survey by the Social Weather Station (SWS) released this year. Many of the very poor just eat a handful of cooked rice and soya sauce or a piece of small fish. Others in the cities eat “pag-pag,” a stew of re-cooked scraps from the uneaten dinners of restaurant customers.
The greed of the corrupt tycoons and elite that control the Philippine food supply, especially rice, and the politicians that enable it, are to blame for hunger and the super high price of rice.
Hunger is the fuel of revolution like what happened recently in Bangladesh. Tyrannical rule by the rich elite for 15 years was overthrown by a short-lived peaceful revolution and street demonstrations for social justice during which the Bangladesh military killed more than 200 protesters, and forced the prime minister to quit and flee abroad. Mohammad Yunus, a civic leader and founder of the grassroots Grameen Bank, was invited by the student-leaders of the revolution to head an interim government.
The fact is that so many Filipinos are hungry and living in despair of a better life in a nation of 79,000 Filipino ($) millionaires and 18 Filipino ($) billionaires that don’t seem to share their wealth to alleviate poverty and hunger. This indicates the level of great inequality that is causing hunger in the Philippines.
Tasting the rice grown by the suffering farmers might satisfy our physical hunger but we need to hunger for justice and equality and feel compassion for the victims of social injustice and government corruption and take social action. We can join a movement or non-government organization working for social justice and farmers or indigenous people’s rights.
If you are striving to be a true Christian and have faith that goodness and action for social justice will overcome greed, inequality, selfishness and injustice, then that true faith in action will overcome corruption. Anything less is just an empty show where faith is dead. (James 2:15-17)
Perhaps you did not eat Philippine rice after all because the rice-buying cartels of political tycoons export most Philippine rice worth US$1.56 million dollars to the Middle Eastern countries and Bangladesh. The Filipino farmers still only earn about Php315 and most Filipinos pay 54 Pesos (average) a kilo of rice, almost $1 a kilo. That is very expensive and makes huge profits for the rice importers and traders.
After the harvest, the tenant farmers pay their debts, medicines and other needs and give a share to the land owner and not much is left. So, the tenant farmers borrow money to feed their families and borrow to buy the fertilizer and pesticides for the next planting. The cycle repeats itself. The poor farmers remain poor. (To be continued)/PN
