Drowning in Thirst.
A few weeks back our water purifier after serving our family for more than ten years, bade us goodbye.
We started buying the five liter tank of purified water from a commercial distributor then.
At first I was ecstatic. It meant 24/7 hot and cold water because we also bought a water dispenser.
Then, I noticed that when my father or mother forgets to buy water we end up not drinking any for hours until any of them remembers or any of them happens to be in the city with cash for water.
I realized that the situation is absurd.
I grow up in Esperanza without bottled water. The closest thing that I came close to is the ice water. Water from deep wells and poured into a cellophane.
I used to fetch waters from the “bomba” water pumps that I fill into clay jars that we call in the vernacular as “Banga”
We are a below average average family in the social strata. And potable water is becoming a problem for us. How much more for the majority who wallows in the base of the social triangle?
Rice sufficiency – the nightmare of hunger.
In May of last year we had the rice crisis. Prices of rice skyrocketed from the average 20 peso plus price range to a high of 46 peso per kilo.
We survived that challenge. But have we learned from it? Have we changed our policies?
The thrust of development is still foreign demand driven. The arable and irrigated lands in Central Mindanao are in danger of being converted into African palm plantations and other areas in Mindanao are on their way to either becoming high value crop plantations or land for plants that provide alternative energy like jathropa.
The problem is that rice is the staple of Filipinos. Most could live without meat but not on a no rice diet.
What bothers me is that these kinds of challenges are reflective of the flawed policy that our government relies on.
Instead of strengthening our country through building up agriculture. We focus on exporting our goods and our people. Which would live us as preys when the globalization bubble bursts. ( I am not for globalization per se. But the mammoth capitalist monster that it created is bothering me.)
News reports currently boasts that our government has a fail safe plan for the upcoming global recession – government spending on infrastructure that would bring more jobs to keep the economy running.
Hopefully, these infrastructures would be the much sought after farm to market roads and post harvest facilities.
And maybe a little bit of spending on agricultural research would not help. And bridging the Department of Trade with the Department of Agriculture would boost the marketing of produce and would inject a bit of restraint in the pricing of these goods that even the farmers can still afford them.
Shut your face bombers!
My hometown Esperanza Sultan Kudarat experienced again a bombing on my birthday. On my birthday. I know I am such a bombshell but for God sake’s do not shell Esperanza with a bomb as a birthday gift. (Apologies for this inane comment – this is probably a testament of the fact that when you live with bombings and violence for most of your life you would not be that affected when you hear that a bomb was detonated in a checkpoint in your hometown.
The student of one of my aunties died on that blast and a policeman who was guarding the post was also injured.
The following day a grenade was thrown at a group of people converging at Oval Plaza in the city where I live. 25 people were injures including the papable in the gym where I intermittently go.
These bombing are a constant reminder that Mindanao may be the Land of Promise but it is also where the steely nerved, the shell shocked, the tolerant and those who strategically preserves a precarious peace dwells.
Those are what basically worries me and well the fact that I am stuck at 65 kilos is also a problem.
