Of Food Security and State Neglect
Written by: Heather Andres and Elah Deloria
“Mayaman ang Pilipinas, pero naghihirap ang mamamayang Pilipino.”
This irony remains to be a reality at the moment. The country has an abundance of natural resources and agricultural land, yet the majority of the Filipino people remain hungry in the midst of a national health crisis and a failing economy.
In 2019, IBON Foundation presented a family living wage of P1,004 for a family of five (5). As of 2020, the minimum wage in the National Capital Region (NCR) is P537. Even with two breadwinners, the combined income would just barely go beyond the threshold and is an emergency away from poverty.
Once again, the Duterte administration disregards the needs of the people especially now that we are still in a pandemic. Instead of implementing wage increases and price reductions to fill the empty stomachs of the masses, Duterte continues to wage war against those in poverty, filling up his and his cronies’ pockets with billions they plundered from the people.
On February 8, Duterte and the Department of Agriculture imposed Executive Order 124, which implements a 60-day price ceiling on pork and chicken products. This implementation tries to address some of the effects of the recession, one of which is the rising prices in the stocks of food. On the said date, kasim or pigue was priced at P270 while liempo was at P300 (per kilo). On the other hand, dressed chicken was at P160. Before its enforcement, the prevailing prices for kasim, liempo, and chicken were P350, P390, and P170 per kilo respectively. When the price ceiling happened, it resulted in a P10-P90 price decrease. However, according to Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura or SINAG, sellers of these products cannot sell within the price ceiling because it is very close to production cost or farmgate price. Furthermore, complying with the price ceiling meant that the vendors had to find cheaper suppliers — which is hard to come by as well — or risk being penalized. As a result, some vendors opted not to sell anymore and a supply shortage in Metro Manila emerged.
Besides the increase in the price of pork (meat prices increased by about 10%), the prices of several other food items also increased. Generally, vegetable prices increased by as high as 19.7%. Furthermore, the inflation rate also shot upwards to 4.2%, way above the initial central bank target of 2.4%. Outside the numbers, the reality is more grim, as vegetables usually form the staple food (besides rice) of many families, especially those on a tight budget. The high inflation rate also makes it already difficult for many people during the pandemic.
Since the beginning of his term in 2016, Duterte’s administration was recorded to have the lowest wage increase and the least amount of wage hikes in the past 35 years, with only two wage hikes implemented within his five years in office: the first being in September 2017, and the other in November 2018. This lack of provided wage increases over the past three years was further aggravated by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, another national crisis that unearthed more flaws and incompetencies in Duterte’s Philippines, exposing the anti-poor practices that have been put in place since the beginning of the presidential term. It can be seen at this point that no economic policy presented by the government will benefit the starving masses in any way, pushing them into a corner where they are forced to comply with the rules that further deprive them of their basic necessities.
With the situation at hand, neither the suppliers or sellers of these products will take much benefit from the implementation of such price ceilings, nor will it ever benefit as well the mass consumers of our country. There will always be a resulting shortage of supplies. In spite of the crisis of a current pandemic that has not gone anywhere better in the near future, both vendors and mass consumers are still individuals who are barely making the minimum needed to survive. The rising pork and poultry prices are gravely affecting the livelihood of small retailers and the tables of millions of Filipino families and yet, the Duterte regime remains relentless in squandering billions of pesos for its expensive counterinsurgency program and anti-poor, pro-crony economic policies.
Instead of addressing the sharp rise in prices of food and basic commodities, Duterte is brazenly using the crisis to justify his plans of pursuing policies that will attract foreign big capital and will only benefit capitalists and big bourgeoisie compradors while the ordinary Filipino sinks deeper into poverty, hunger, unemployment, aggravated even further by the year-long pandemic and the lack of a comprehensive response from the government. To add fuel to the fire, Duterte poured 19 billion Pesos from the national budget into the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) projects in an attempt to address the communist insurgency in the country, another futile move that only further deprived the masses of their constitutional rights and put activists at risk of being tagged as terrorists. This only reassures the people of where the priorities of this administration lie: in the maintenance of its power and pursuit of its political interest. It has no interest in considering the health of its people who have been stuck in community quarantine for almost a year, even more so with the necessities that the people need on the daily.
No amount of threats, harassment, or intimidation will stop the toiling masses from rising up especially now that it is becoming more and more apparent that the economic policies of the Duterte regime only lead to poverty and ruin for the many, and the enrichment of the few. We must unite with the broad masses in holding the government accountable for its poor management of the situation, and further call for just wages especially during this pandemic. The access to food is something that affects not only the poor but also everyone, and the Filipino people deserve no less than equitable access to it. We must fight with the masses, to the streets if necessary, to manifest our collective anger.
