Reaping what she sowed

EDITORIAL

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04/11/2008

Agriculture projects seem the way to go for Gloria and her cabal when it comes to raising money to fatten their wallets and at the same time, assure that their hold on Malacañang is secured.

It would be easy to surmise why. Agriculture is the biggest economic sector in the country and most of the workers in it are so poor that they would allow themselves to be used in Gloria’s schemes in exchange for a pittance.

With the huge size of the farming sector, even a simple project of providing seeds to farmers, under the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani (GMA) program of the Department of Agriculture, would be worth something like P3 billion.

Then, there is the P728 million that would have been spent to provide farmers with fertilizers. A project like the GMA program was overseen by Agriculture Usec. Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, one of the First Gentleman’s alleged pawns in government.

Lately, lawyer Harry Roque had exposed the so-called Swine scam, which was all of P5 billion intended to provide low-cost piglets to supposedly raise the production of hog raisers.

All of the three projects that were mostly implemented prior to the 2004 national elections, went, in whole or in part, as perceived by the public, to the pockets of Gloria and her cabal and a big part of these was used to buy and steal the presidential elections.

Had the projects been implemented properly, the problem in the supply and prices of rice would have not happened.

Now, the nation is witness to the frightening sight of Filipinos lining up the streets under the heat of the sun just to have the limited ration of affordable rice from the National Food Authority (NFA).

The rice crisis, thus, was mainly the result of Gloria’s neglect, worse, deception of the farming sector.

The crisis could be a form of divine retribution on Gloria’s trickery.

Indeed, it would take gall of unprecedented proportion for Gloria to tell the Senate that its endless investigations would not put food into the poor’s table.

Without batting an eyelash, Gloria also added that the main focus of her administration was to put food on the table of the Filipino people.

Food, and much more, on the table of her cabal, perhaps.

Most of the anomalies in agriculture projects were detailed during inquiries made by the Senate.

The biggest fault of such inquiries when it comes to Gloria’s government focus, would have been preempting the start of similar brink jobs.

Had she been true to her word that politics should have not taken precedence over the people’s welfare, the P728 million that went to the fertilizer scam, the P3 billion for the GMA seed program and the P5 billion filched from the Swine scam could have easily borne fruit by now.

Had Gloria served food instead of politics, Filipino farmers would not be in a state of misery and consumers would not be worrying where to find the next kilo of rice for their meal.

Instead, all the money was believed to have been thrown into Gloria’s pyre of corruption and poll cheating.

It is equally pathetic for Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to suggest that Filipinos start shifting to eating corn and camote.

Never in the history of the Philippines had Filipino families served camote and corn in their tables as meals except perhaps during the Japanese occupation in World War ll.

Duque’s advice was like saying that life under the watch of Gloria is approximating the hardship that the nation endured during the most destructive war in which it was ever involved. But perhaps Duque can’t help but tell the truth when it comes to this.

Gloria had descended on the nation like the plague that had devastated the crops of Vietnam, China and Thailand that is now resulting in a worldwide shortage in rice.

By the way, the government’s importation of 2.7 million metric tons (MT) of rice this year, the biggest for any country, was the primary reason the cost of rice in the world is shooting up beyond $1,000 per MT.

Thus, what Gloria has been using as an excuse for the rising cost of rice that would soon turn into a crisis was but her own doing.

Gloria planted the seeds of deceit and made them flourish, and the nation is now on the road to famine.

That is what you call blight.

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