CHIZ SAYS RICE SHORTAGE A NEW LOW IN ARROYO GOV'T HISTORY

Opposition senator Chiz Escudero scoffed at the "half cup of rice" per meal recommended by Agriculture officials as the first dietary restriction of its kind since "the Japanese commandant of the University of Santos Tomas internment camp imposed it on his American prisoners."

"Our rice crisis must be so grave that no government after the war has recommended concentration camp servings of rice until this one. This is a new low in our history. No government has hinted to make the self-imposed Lenten fast permanent" Escudero said.

He said a "half cup of rice" meal would work if it's accompanied "by servings of fish or meat, and vegetables and topped off probably by a slice of fruit."

"It may work on people on a diet, but for many Filipinos, they get by on rice only; to have tuyo is a treat and galunggong a feast. Sasabihin nila: Bigas na nga lang ang kaya namin tapos gusto nyo pang hati-in?" Escudero said.

"If no Malacañang government official in an air conditioned office could last a day by having nothing but a ball of rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then how can we expect laborers who do outside heavy work to last on that alone?," Escudero said.

Escudero said government is cleverly blaming the "bad table manners of Filipinos that we don't finish off all our rice, for its increasing price, when it shares a large part of the blame."

"The problem is not wasteful consumption but inadequate consumption. How can you waste rice when there is no rice to waste in the first place? Ang kanin nga ginagawang lugaw na, tapos sinusumbatan pa natin na maaksaya sila. That's rubbing salt on the wound," he said.

Escudero said more Filipinos are going to bed hungry, from 10.8 million in 2003 to 12.2 million in 2006, or an increase of 14% in the number of what the National Statistics Coordination Board calls as "food-poor".

To make ends meet, Filipinos, in another government survey, have been relying more on "ulam substitutes" which include toyo, cooking oil, coffee, noodles to lace their rice with, Escudero pointed out.

He said chronic neglect of agriculture has led us to where we are now, "when we redefined food security as not the ability to grow our own food but to simply have the money to buy it elsewhere, and thus we deserted irrigation, abandoned farm roads, and neglected post-harvest facilities, so when foreign food become more expensive, we do not have a vibrant farm sector to fall back on."