Thursday, April 17, 2008 Aguilar: Another vote buying scheme? By George Aguilar Rational animal
GOVERNMENT'S plan to pull out NFA rice from public markets and limit the selling of the same in barangay centers may do more harm than good.
The government is mulling over proposals to pull out NFA rice from the markets because they claim that rich and middle class people compete with the poor by buying NFA rice.
If the government does pull out NFA rice from the markets and make it available only at the barangay center, for how long does it want to do this? Till 2010?
Are they trying to tell us then that the rice shortage will last for two more years because it will take that long for their long term plans to affect rice production in the land? Or is this just another clever attempt for the government to buy and influence votes in 2010?
Firstly, I don't really see the rich and middle class folk rushing over to line up for NFA rice. The elite and even the professional and business classes won't waste valuable time lining up for NFA rice even if one can save as much as 12 to 17 pesos a kilo by buying 2 kilos of NFA rice per day.
Also, the middle class or the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie are picky when it comes to food and won't waste their time eating NFA rice if they can help it. My second point is that even if they do buy NFA rice, what of it?
Arthur Yap would like to blame households instead of cartels for rice hoarding if he can get away with that ridiculous notion. He said that it is the middle class buying and hoarding NFA rice that is making rice more and more expensive.
Come on, why not just say that we have a rice shortage and work on long term solutions to make us self sufficient in the production of our favorite staple crop?
Instead of finger pointing, the government should allocate more funds to build up irrigation systems and stop land conversion to plant more rice. The government should also subsidize rice production and give tax shelters to rice farmers. Instead, they want to pull out NFA rice and ration it to the poor at barangay centers instead.
But if there really is a rice shortage, then how would this scheme help feed the poor? If there is no more NFA rice available then why insist on selling it at barangay centers? There may still be NFA rice available or perhaps not but what is the point in trying to regulate it. Market forces should be sufficient enough to regulate the buying and selling of the same, just make sure that the cartels can't hoard the next time around.
My fear is that the hoarding and rationing of NFA rice at barangay centers may be just a ploy to buy votes through the distribution of NFA rice in 2010. That is, if we are having elections by 2010.
It might just work, especially in Negros where the parochial mentality is still strong among our province's poor. I spoke to a person months ago and asked her why she voted for a certain congressman. She said she knew that the candidate was corrupt but the candidate gave her money so she could bring her mother to the regional hospital and because of that she felt obliged to vote for that candidate.
So there you have it. Distribute rice at the barangay center; place it in neat plastic bags that have the picture of national and local candidates in future elections and then we would have another kind of vote buying in our midst.
