Friday, February 01, 2008 Roperos: No hunger before us By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
THERE was this report some weeks ago about how the instances of severe hunger in Central Visayas had decreased by seven percent. This was based on the result of a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey in the last quarter of 2007.
The survey said that severe hunger was suffered by 21.7 percent of the people in September 2007, but the incidence of hunger in the Central Visayas region went down to 14.3 percent in December. This means more CV inhabitants enjoyed a joyous Yule last year.
It was fulfilling news to people in government working to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in the country. The National Nutrition Council’s goal is to reach a “zero percent hunger.”
Although at this point the goal is still elusive, the success of the hunger mitigation program is already obvious. Hunger, though, is essentially not yet a warm bedfellow of our people. Real hunger does not appear to be a genuine problem of our rural folks.
When I was still a kid not old enough to enroll in Grade One, I went with the father of my mother to his one hectare cornfield in a village called Siamong, a sitio of then Barrio Prenza, just less than two kilometers from the heart of town.
The area was along the first gravel road that led to the hills. They called it Bag-ong Dalan or New Road, and it led to far away Cebu City. Later, the road became officially known as the Balamban-Talamban road. Work on it started in 1923, some seven years before I was born.
When I was old enough to go with my grandfather to his corn farm, we either took the gravel road or followed the shady trail under coconut trees. But the gravel road was a shorter route.
My grandfather Moises had a small bamboo and nipa hut built on a promontory overlooking the green sea of growing corn crop. On the side of the promontory, from the hut down to the edge of the cornfield, he had peanuts, leaf tobacco, native onions, hot pepper, and eggplants. He lined the edge of the field with kamunggay.
It was in a way, a self-sufficient small farm. Where the hut was, young coconuts trees were just flowering. That was how I learned to climb coconuts, gather tuba, and make coconut vinegar. Or just enjoy the young coconuts on hot summer afternoons.
Indeed, where I grew up during World War II, food was the least of our worries. We had no problem with hunger, no uncertainties except the one caused by the enemies.
