Okay, awat na…for the next 16 days, let’s stop the political noise. Pasko na!
Simbang gabi, that lovely Filipino tradition of greeting the birth of Christ with a novena of early dawn masses, starts today. Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperating, thanks in large part to this phenomenon called climate change.
The nights and early mornings are not cold, not even nippy. I used to put off the bedroom airconditioner in years past from December to February. But these days, evening temperatures are in the high 20s, while in the daytime they can go as high as 33-34 degrees Celsius.
And if the temperatures are warm, politics is hot—from waiting in suspense for the Comelec to rule on whether or not Grace Poe and Rodrigo Duterte’s names will be printed in the ballots for 2016, or engaging in this nonsense of slapping each other over a Wharton degree that taught little common sense.
Tama na…sobra na…Pasko naman!
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My daughter frets about not having finished her Christmas shopping, and curses at the traffic situation.
Me? Unless there is an important meeting somewhere, I just stay home. For the last six years or so, I have not gone Christmas shopping anyway. It’s for the ladies in the household to bother about. And I ask that meetings be held within a ten-kilometer distance from home. It takes an hour to get to Makati central business district, which is just about five kilometers away, with traffic. Sometimes one experiences a miracle, where traffic flow is smooth, which means cooling your heels for a meeting yet to start. But that’s fine, as long as you are not late.
But staying at home means having to watch TV news. And listen to all the banality that Philippine electoral politics brings.
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Not enough attention is given by media to the results of the climate change summit in Paris. More about DQ here and DQ there, and sampalan blues.
Little attention is given to the fact that the El Niño that will visit us soon will be the worst in 60 years. The phenomenon has started. Farms in what used to be the huge Cotabato province before it was divided into five are reeling from the effects of a prolonged drought. Caraga and Davao as well.
Many rice and corn farmers in Mindanao will be unable to plant their crops because what used to be December rain will be a prolonged period of dry air. By March, 85 percent of the entire country will be suffering from the effects of this El Niño.
And since little improvement has happened in the state of irrigation since Marcos left the country 30 years ago, despite bloated budgets, rain-fed fields will just lie fallow. Food crops will be supply-scarce; prices will increase.
Meanwhile, farmers suffer. Farm-gate prices of palay are down to the P14-15 level, leaving palay farmers very little left to sustain themselves through the season of drought. And government has to resort to massive rice importation, just to keep consumer prices stable, especially with elections right around the corner.
It will be déjà vu in the State-of-the-Nation Address of 2016, when the next president reports to the nation that the rice self-sufficiency promise was just a tall tale concocted by a Department of Agriculture which did not know how to compute data and face up to reality. And that as a result of which, public debt incurred by the National Food Authority, which in 2010 was P178 billion, gone down by 2013 to P150 billion, is back to where it was in 2010—maybe even higher.
In 2010, the DA budget was some P30 billion. It increased year after year, so that the PNoy administration gave DA a legacy budget of P67 billion, more than double what GMA gave. And what shall we show for it?
Don’t look at NFA. In 2010, DBM gave it a mere P2.5 billion subsidy to buy palay in 2011; and P4 billion each year thereafter. Compare that to how much they lavished at DA, and compare the rice production budget to the alleged harvest growth figures. The next president, even if he never stepped foot at Wharton upon the University of Pennsylvania, will compute failure.
But never mind figures and statistics. The poor can’t eat that, anyway. Just think—beyond rice, how much will your sitaw and talong cost next year, never mind the cabbage and carrots of your chopsuey. And if the El Niño increases sea water temperature higher, wonder how much your bangus will cost. Will you then vote for continuity?
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In any case, visit your church for the Simbang Gabi. Don’t bring your mothballed sweaters, you’d sweat if you wear these.
Oh, and by the way, has your balikbayan box arrived?