What difference can an additional P10 in the cost of rice make?

Few months ago, while watching the television, I wept on the sight of young children heavily beaten by their mother because they played with the last cup of rice that they have. I could have hated their mother for doing so. Who in their right mind will hurt children for a cup of rice?

But I wept. Not only for the children, but more so for their mother, and for the rest of the Filipinos who are poor and desperate to put food on their empty plates and feed their hungry children.

The mother, for sure, was not in her right mind at that time. Besides, no mother would be able to stand the sight of her own children with nothing to eat.

In February, the average price of rice was Php24 per kilo. Now, it costs over P40 and still increasing.

For a middle-income earner like myself, life is hard… how much more to the majority of the country’s poor who survives on less than $2 a day? The spiking cost of food, particularly rice, is making life harder to our country’s poor, especially the children. 

Indeed, the continuous increase in the cost of rice is pushing the poor deeper into poverty and on the verge of survival.

While the government announced that there is no rice shortage yet in the Philippines, it admitted that the problem is the decline in the purchasing power of most of the Filipinos. Put simply, people who previously were able to meet the food needs of their family are now no longer able to do so. Meaning, the rising cost of food is straining the budget of families prompting them to cut down on their expenses and tighten their belts even more.

Sadly, this could result to decrease in school enrollment rates when the school opens in June; more child laborers; more slow-learners; more malnourished children… more children deprived to reach their full potential.

While generally the impact of the rising cost of rice here in the Philippines is more felt in urban areas and most of the areas where we work do not grapple with the rising cost of food, at least not yet, the rising cost of food, coupled with the continuous increas eof fuel price, drammatically affects the prices of other commodities as well.  Such chain of impact can possibly reverse whatever progress the country claims to have achieved in the past, as well as the development efforts of the various humanitarian organizations.

But I believe ours is not a totally helpless case.  A lot can be done to solve the crisis.  To top the list, the government should demonstrate a strong political will in addressing the problem on the rising cost of food.  Government and non-government agencies can discuss different avenues for collaboration.  The crisis may well be an opportunity to unify opposing ranks where the left and right, rich and poor, exhibit personal will to show genuine concern for one another.

Indeed, this is not the time for finger-pointing.  Let us set aside our differences and put all our efforts together to win this crisis. Together, lets brave this “perfect storm.”