Still, hunger
Still, hunger
Updated 00:24am (Mla time) Oct 11, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 11, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I CAUGHT Patricia Sto. Tomas on TV defending it. Frankly, she said, she couldn't understand why anyone would protest the food coupons. Sure it was a desperate move, but the situation was desperate. People were hungry. At least government was doing something. Would we rather President Macapagal-Arroyo just wrung her hands and fell on her knees in supplication? The food coupons were not meant to be the ultimate solution, just a temporary one.
Ignacio Bunye said the same thing. "In any crisis," he said, "the government must serve first and foremost those who are on the edge of survival. Relief, however temporary, is called for as we lead on in the more fundamental and larger reforms that would deal with poverty permanently."
Well, we have a saying, "Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo?" which translates literally in English as, "What will you do with the hay when the horse is dead?" It asserts the wisdom of having a sense of priorities. Saving hay means nothing when the horse is kept hungry: the plenitude of hay won't matter to it when it's dead. First, feed the horse, then save as much hay as remains afterward.
It's not a bad adage, but it is one that does not apply here. This is not a case of feeding the horse first and saving hay afterward. This is a case of giving the horse a bit of hay-and a few drops of water-after deliberately starving it for months. The exact parallel here is bringing toys to the war-ravaged kids of Muslim Mindanao. By itself there is nothing wrong with that, it is even salutary. It offers diversion, if not comfort, to kids in refugee centers, many of whom have lost their mothers and fathers to the war. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing those same kids to lose their mothers and fathers to a gratuitous war. It is not thoughtfulness, it is rubbing salt on wound.
That is what the food coupons are. By itself, it is not a bad idea. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing people to go hungry in the first place. That is what its critics are protesting. Have government officials become so inured to iniquity they cannot see the monumental irony of those food coupons? Isn't it one for Guinness that the one leader who brought hunger to this country, and sparked the specter of food riots in the future, is a trade specialist? Isn't it one for Ripley's that the one President who drove this country on the verge of economic collapse, issuing food coupons for the first time since the War, is an economist?
It is not merely-as critics of the food coupons say-that it violates the other adage that says, "It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him fish." It is simply that it gives a man fish after taking his boat and his fishing line away from him and putting up a "No Trespassing" sign in front of the sea. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo borrowed in three and a half years more than Fidel Ramos and Erap did in their combined eight years of rule. To have nothing to show for this other than a country now on the verge of a humanitarian disaster-as Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of the CBCP puts it-not unlike the African countries we used to pity and give mission alms to, represents pillage of a scale that rivals only the Marcos regime's. It is giving people fish after robbing them of the means to catch fish.
In any crisis, says Bunye, government must serve first and foremost those on the edge of survival. Those words are not without sublime irony, having taken on the most perverse meanings over the last several months. Government was made to serve someone on the edge of survival some months ago. That was GMA, the post-Edsa II President who was desperate to win a second term after plunging the country to a desperate pass last year. No money was spared to allow her to do so. You add up the entire amount the food subsidies will cost the nation, and it is nothing compared to the sum GMA spent to win the 2004 elections.
Unfortunately for the hungry, they cannot eat her billboards. They cannot even use them to fortify their shacks: Even the hungry have aesthetics.
As the crisis bites, we are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to forget our differences and recriminations and unite behind GMA to pull the country out of the rut. We are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to stop complaining and dwelling on the negative side of things and start working together and thinking positively to get this country over the hump. Nothing can be more stupid. The reason we are in this rut, or keep falling deeper into it, is that we do not recriminate and complain enough, we do not dwell on the "negative" enough.
If we had protested loudly against GMA's ransacking of the public treasury to win a second term, we might even now have enough money for wholesale relief. No, we might not even have a situation needing massive relief to begin with. If we had protested loudly against her "war against terror," we would not have had a fellow Filipino threatened with beheading by Iraqi partisans. No, we might not even have had a situation where overseas Filipino workers need to be prevented from going to Iraq.
Angelo de la Cruz survives and we toast GMA for deciding to pull our troops back, forgetting she put them there to begin with. GMA issues food coupons and we-or her supporters, which include ex-activists and ex-pillars of civil society-toast her for feeding the hungry, forgetting she made them hungry in the first place.
The point in any crisis is not just to unite, it is to know how to lead. Otherwise we'll just go around in circles. Is it a wonder we keep having the sensation the world is spinning?
That's not just the product of hunger.
Updated 00:24am (Mla time) Oct 11, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 11, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I CAUGHT Patricia Sto. Tomas on TV defending it. Frankly, she said, she couldn't understand why anyone would protest the food coupons. Sure it was a desperate move, but the situation was desperate. People were hungry. At least government was doing something. Would we rather President Macapagal-Arroyo just wrung her hands and fell on her knees in supplication? The food coupons were not meant to be the ultimate solution, just a temporary one.
Ignacio Bunye said the same thing. "In any crisis," he said, "the government must serve first and foremost those who are on the edge of survival. Relief, however temporary, is called for as we lead on in the more fundamental and larger reforms that would deal with poverty permanently."
Well, we have a saying, "Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo?" which translates literally in English as, "What will you do with the hay when the horse is dead?" It asserts the wisdom of having a sense of priorities. Saving hay means nothing when the horse is kept hungry: the plenitude of hay won't matter to it when it's dead. First, feed the horse, then save as much hay as remains afterward.
It's not a bad adage, but it is one that does not apply here. This is not a case of feeding the horse first and saving hay afterward. This is a case of giving the horse a bit of hay-and a few drops of water-after deliberately starving it for months. The exact parallel here is bringing toys to the war-ravaged kids of Muslim Mindanao. By itself there is nothing wrong with that, it is even salutary. It offers diversion, if not comfort, to kids in refugee centers, many of whom have lost their mothers and fathers to the war. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing those same kids to lose their mothers and fathers to a gratuitous war. It is not thoughtfulness, it is rubbing salt on wound.
That is what the food coupons are. By itself, it is not a bad idea. But it is nothing less than obscene when it comes after causing people to go hungry in the first place. That is what its critics are protesting. Have government officials become so inured to iniquity they cannot see the monumental irony of those food coupons? Isn't it one for Guinness that the one leader who brought hunger to this country, and sparked the specter of food riots in the future, is a trade specialist? Isn't it one for Ripley's that the one President who drove this country on the verge of economic collapse, issuing food coupons for the first time since the War, is an economist?
It is not merely-as critics of the food coupons say-that it violates the other adage that says, "It is better to teach a man to fish than to give him fish." It is simply that it gives a man fish after taking his boat and his fishing line away from him and putting up a "No Trespassing" sign in front of the sea. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo borrowed in three and a half years more than Fidel Ramos and Erap did in their combined eight years of rule. To have nothing to show for this other than a country now on the verge of a humanitarian disaster-as Bishop Deogracias Iniguez of the CBCP puts it-not unlike the African countries we used to pity and give mission alms to, represents pillage of a scale that rivals only the Marcos regime's. It is giving people fish after robbing them of the means to catch fish.
In any crisis, says Bunye, government must serve first and foremost those on the edge of survival. Those words are not without sublime irony, having taken on the most perverse meanings over the last several months. Government was made to serve someone on the edge of survival some months ago. That was GMA, the post-Edsa II President who was desperate to win a second term after plunging the country to a desperate pass last year. No money was spared to allow her to do so. You add up the entire amount the food subsidies will cost the nation, and it is nothing compared to the sum GMA spent to win the 2004 elections.
Unfortunately for the hungry, they cannot eat her billboards. They cannot even use them to fortify their shacks: Even the hungry have aesthetics.
As the crisis bites, we are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to forget our differences and recriminations and unite behind GMA to pull the country out of the rut. We are going to hear government officials tell us more and more to stop complaining and dwelling on the negative side of things and start working together and thinking positively to get this country over the hump. Nothing can be more stupid. The reason we are in this rut, or keep falling deeper into it, is that we do not recriminate and complain enough, we do not dwell on the "negative" enough.
If we had protested loudly against GMA's ransacking of the public treasury to win a second term, we might even now have enough money for wholesale relief. No, we might not even have a situation needing massive relief to begin with. If we had protested loudly against her "war against terror," we would not have had a fellow Filipino threatened with beheading by Iraqi partisans. No, we might not even have had a situation where overseas Filipino workers need to be prevented from going to Iraq.
Angelo de la Cruz survives and we toast GMA for deciding to pull our troops back, forgetting she put them there to begin with. GMA issues food coupons and we-or her supporters, which include ex-activists and ex-pillars of civil society-toast her for feeding the hungry, forgetting she made them hungry in the first place.
The point in any crisis is not just to unite, it is to know how to lead. Otherwise we'll just go around in circles. Is it a wonder we keep having the sensation the world is spinning?
That's not just the product of hunger.
posted by Dante at 12:26 PM
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