Arroyo orders crackdown on rice hoarders

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published: March 25, 2008

MANILA: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered a crackdown on rice hoarders Tuesday, as her administration tried to blunt the impact of rice shortages that analysts said could fuel public unrest.

Arroyo also appealed to traders not to artificially raise the price of rice, the country’s staple food, which had risen by nearly 50 percent since January, according to official statistics. Filipinos have also been facing soaring prices of oil and basic household commodities.

In her directive, Arroyo ordered Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to “go all-out against rice hoarders to ensure that cheap government rice ends up on the tables of the intended consumers - the country’s poor.”

Yap, she said, “is staking out all NFA warehouses so he can follow the big 10-wheeler trucks and see where they are bringing rice,” Arroyo said, referring to the National Food Authority, the government agency tasked to regulate the rice industry.

The agency also runs the government’s rice-subsidy program; it buys rice from farmers here and abroad and sells it to the public at a cheaper price.

But officials said some traders have been buying the subsidized rice and stockpiling it to sell months later at higher prices. This practice, they said, has exacerbated the shortages as demand is growing. The government estimates that the country’s population, now at 85 million, will reach 94 million by 2010.

The Philippines, once Asia’s leading rice producer, is now its leading rice importer, according to the Ibon Foundation, an economic research group.

Last year, the country imported 1.8 million tons of rice, or 16 percent of its requirement, mainly from Vietnam and Thailand.

Earlier this month, Arroyo asked the Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, to commit his country to export 1.5 million tons to the Philippines. Vietnam pledged only a million tons, according to officials.

And last week, amid reports that government rice inventories were thinning, Yap suggested that fast-food restaurants cut rice servings in half to limit consumption and waste. According to the government, 25,000 bags of rice are wasted daily.

On Monday, Arroyo ordered the release of 1.5 billion pesos, or $37 million, to the Agriculture Department to help farmers improve production. But farmers’ groups said the money would do little to stabilize the country’s rice supply in the long term.

One group, the Rice Watch and Action Network, which is based in Manila, predicted Tuesday that “the worst is yet to come,” saying that the price of rice could rise to 40 pesos a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds - from the usual 25 to 30 pesos - during the lean months between July and September. The group said this year’s rice output, estimated at 1.8 million metric tons, “will last for only 55 days.”

The National Food Authority is likewise hard-pressed to purchase more rice from the international market, where prices have been hovering between $500 and $700 per metric ton, compared with $300 seven years ago.

Analysts warn that the rice crisis only adds to the problems facing the Arroyo administration, which has been dogged with corruption allegations.

“Along with all the political and governance issues, this crisis can fuel further unrest,” said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute of Political and Economic Reform, a Manila think tank.

Critics said Arroyo needs to rethink agriculture policy, which they say contributed to the problem.

“Tight global supply and record-high prices mean that the country can no longer be assured that traditional sources of imported rice will be able to deliver like before,” said Rafael Mariano, president of the Peasants Movement of the Philippines.

He blamed the shortages in part on the conversion of agricultural land for commercial development, as well as the promotion of export crops like asparagus and bananas at the expense of staples like rice and corn.

Former President Aquino of the Philippines has colon cancer

By Carlos H. Conde

International Herald Tribune
The New York Times
Published: March 24, 2008

MANILA: Corazon Aquino, the former Philippine leader who played a major role in the ouster of two of the country’s presidents, has been found to have colon cancer, her family announced Monday.

The ailment was discovered after Aquino, 75, underwent a series of medical tests because of hypertension and difficulty in breathing in December. Since then, her daughter Kristina Bernadette Aquino said at a news conference Monday, the former president had lost weight and suffered consistent coughing and a loss of appetite.

“The results showed that our mother is suffering cancer of the colon,” she said, adding that the former president decided to disclose her illness to the public because “our mother has always believed in being up-front.”

“It’s a very difficult time for our family, most especially for our mother,” she said. She did not provide other details of the medical findings. She called on Filipinos to pray for her mother.

The administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said it was saddened by the news.

“We are hoping for strength for her in the face of adversity,” said Ignacio Bunye, the press secretary.

Although Aquino stepped down from office when her term ended in 1992 - she had succeeded the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who was deposed in the 1986 “people power” uprising that she had led - Aquino had remained in the political spotlight, playing a key part in the second “people power” movement that removed Joseph Estrada from the presidency in 2001.

More recently, Aquino participated in demonstrations calling for the resignation of Arroyo, whose government has been hounded by allegations of corruption and vote-rigging.

Educated in religious schools in Manila and in the United States, Aquino belongs to one of the richest landholding families in the Philippines.

She married Benigno Aquino Jr., a former journalist who became one of the youngest senators in the Philippines and the archrival of Marcos.

Benigno’s assassination in 1983 on his return from years of political exile in the United States provoked protests that ultimately led to Marcos’s fall from power. That event pushed Corazon, his widow, who was a homemaker at the time, to the country’s political center stage and a run for the presidency in 1986. When Marcos won by a slight margin in a vote widely regarded as fraudulent, a popular uprising swept him from power and into exile, and she was inaugurated.

She also began a movement to promote microenterprises and microfinancing in the Philippines, believing that empowering poor Filipinos by helping them start small businesses was a way to combat poverty.