THE RICE CRISIS highlights a very serious and lamentable problem. And this is that the Filipino farmer remains among the most exploited member of society, despite decades of reform, including land distribution.

Indeed, the rice crisis explains why the country’s poverty level has been rising despite the much-ballyhooed 7.3-percent growth in the gross domestic product for 2007. That’s because more than half of our people, or 55 percent, are still dependent on agriculture for their subsistence. If you don’t help agriculture, in effect, you are not helping 55 percent of the population, and only the remaining 45 percent receives assistance to improve their lives.

Continue reading »

OF COURSE, you know FIELDS. It is the government’s answer to the present rice crisis, arrived at during a summit recently held at the Clark Freeport in Pampanga under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture (DA). It is the acronym for F-ertilizer, I-rrigation, E-ducation and training for farms and fisherfolks, L-oans, D-riers & other post-harvest facilities, and S-eeds of the high-yielding hybrid varieties. The government has earmarked P43.7 billion for the package.

Beautiful, from the academic point of view! But how do we ascertain that the money will reach our farmer and fisher folk beneficiaries that FIELDS is supposed to help to increase production? Planting rice is never fun, but, now, will planting rice be made profitable with all the inputs under the FIELDS program?

Continue reading »

A FRIEND told me I had been writing essays about rice. How about its poetry? I said, if he can take hold of a book of the late Executive Secretary Rafael M. Salas, Paeng has written “haikus” about rice.

A “haiku” is a 17-syllable Japanese entertainment verse.

Then I recited a grade school song of many years ago, “Planting rice is never fun,/ Bent from morn till the set of sun;/ Can not stand and cannot sit,/ Can not rest for a little bit.”

This is abolished now. It made people dislike rice farming.

Continue reading »

RECENT reports from several mIRC chatrooms showed that Internet users subscribing to BayanDSL or on dial-up using Bl@st Prepaid, both Lopez-owned, have complained they could not open Brian Gorrell’s blog. On certain occassions, a notice appears saying: Window is busy. Closing this window may cause some problems. We hope this is not deliberate. If it is, this is very disturbing.

If you are a BayanDSL or a Bl@st Prepaid user and have experienced the same, you are welcome to leave a comment for further discussion.

By the way, if you are interested to read the full text of the Supreme Court resolution on the PEA-Amari deal, detailing the involvement of Ms Aurora Montano, click here. Thanks!

THINGS are just getting too exciting on the so-called Gucci Gang controversy after alleged swindler DJ Montano broke his silence on Korina Today at ANC Friday evening, where he repeatedly denied he bilked Australian landscape designer Brian Gorrell of $70,000 (Aus). He also denied several other allegations against him, including cocaine addiction, his being fired from the school where he was teaching, and his fleeing the country when the Gucci Gang controversy exploded in the World Wide Web. He and his family cried for vindication and the restoration of their honor that was allegedly ruined by the controversial Brian Gorrell blog, with their lawyer saying amen.

But the TV interview left so many gaps that have put DJ’s side in this hullabaloo in great doubt. For one, merely showing himself to the public was really not enough because he miserably failed to show that truth is on his side. Take for example his sister’s defense that at one instance, Brian had to send the money to her because during that time, DJ was out of the country. Proving that was too simple. He could have highlighted the date of the Western Union transaction receipt and the stamps on his passport indicating his departure and return to the country. Or he could have brought with him what was left of his plane ticket. Can a passport or a plane ticket be too heavy to be brought to that TV studio? With grave accusations hanging over his head and with millions of people around the world waiting for him to speak up, a luggage full of documents should have been beside him during the entire interview.

Continue reading »

LAST SUNDAY 5 a.m., a group of 40 monkeys attacked the farming village of Sitio Camulayan Gamay, Brgy. Mambaroto, Sipalay City, harvesting the farmers’ bananas, root croops, pineapples, and jack fruits.

Negros Forest and Environmental Foundation’s David Castro said the monkeys of Negros are the long-tailed macaques and are short of food in the forests that are being destroyed by their brothers, the men.

There’s not much to wonder about if we are facing food shortages. Monkeys have taken over rice trading and rice distribution. We are referring to the tail-less monkeys.

Continue reading »

By ISABEL PEFIANCO MARTIN

SOMETIME AGO, at a teacher training session I conducted, I made the mistake of suggesting that Math and Science teachers consider code switching (using English and Tagalog) as a strategy for making lessons less difficult for their students. I did not know that the school had just implemented an English-only policy in the classrooms, corridors and faculty lounges. No wonder teachers and students rushed to the quadrangle during break time!

This practice of enforcing English-only zones in schools is symptomatic of the lack of awareness among school heads about the nature of languages, as well as the basics of learning a language. One important reality that many overlook is that students will not learn a language if they fear it.

Continue reading »

PRESENTLY, there are two annual budgets for 2008 at the Iloilo Provincial Capitol – that of the Governor and the other, that of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP). And each is insisting that his or their budget should be the one in operation.

We understand that there is already a case in court asking it to decide as to which should prevail – the reenacted 2007 budget, with the Governor refusing to acknowledge the SP revised executive budget, or the SP revised budget, which the Governor vetoed but subsequently overridden by the SP.

Continue reading »

LT. COL. CARLOS P. Romulo – the last man off Bataan, was at the Manduriao airport of Iloilo City when Bataan fell to the Japanese on April 19, 1942.

He left Cabcaben Airport in Bataan under heavy Japanese shelling around 1 a.m. of April 9, 1942 and landed in Mindanao at dawn.

After taking his breakfast at the airport, he heard over the radio the voice of his subordinate Lt. Norman Reyes broadcasting the fall of Bataan from Malinta Tunnel in Corregidor Island.

Continue reading »

SOME OBSERVERS have pointed out that the rice scarcity has allowed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to divert public attention from the corruption scandals besetting her administration.

This is not a profound observation, but the rice deficit and the price spiral it has generated have already pushed to the backseat the high-profile Senate investigation into the high-profile ZTE national broadband network (NBN) deal. Relief from the venomous ZTE-NBN investigation in the Senate is the least beneficial effect of the change of focus.

Continue reading »