Thursday, April 10, 2008 Tomas willing to sell rice on CH ‘front steps’
SAYING what is needed is flooding the market with more supply, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday offered to sell rice “on the front steps of City Hall.”
He advised the government to release more stocks in the market to keep rice prices from going up.
“Rice prices are very elastic. In other words, gamay lang nga (a little) shortage, prices will go up,” he said.
Flood market
“If something like that happens, the government and the National Food Authority should flood the market immediately with more stocks of rice until people will realize that sobra diay (there is really more rice) and until one will start selling at a cheaper price,” he added.
Neighboring Talisay City, meanwhile, urged all its barangay leaders to encourage constituents to plant rice and corn to mitigate the impact of the reported rice crisis.
The Department of Health (DOH), though, has another idea: consumption of alternative food such as kamoteng kahoy (cassava) and potatoes.
In particular, there is a season when potatoes are less expensive, said Dr. Susan Madarieta, DOH 7 director.
She said both cassava and potatoes could be eaten with malunggay, kangkong, and ampalaya for the other required nutrients.
“We can survive without rice. We are just used to eating it. If there is really a shortage of rice or prices are increasing, then it’s time to shift to other staple food substitutes,” she said in a press conference yesterday.
She said her office gives out ampalaya seeds and kangkong, and recommends that families start their own vegetable gardens with a wide variety of root crops.
Planting was in the mind of Talisay City Councilor Bernard Odilao, council committee on agriculture and environmental protection chairman, when he crafted a resolution the City Council recently approved.
He said Talisay still has vast tracts of agricultural land, especially in the hilly areas, that are idle.
“With what could be a rice and corn shortage the country might be facing, these tracts of land can certainly be put to good use,” read his resolution addressed to the city’s
22 barangay captains.
Odilao believes that Talisay’s arable but idle lands will help provide for their constituents’ daily rice subsistence and that of the nation.
Apart from the mountain barangays’ farmlands, Talisay also has rice-fields in the lowland villages of Pooc and Mohon.
“Each and every barangay of this country must do something to curb this impending food crisis,” the councilor said.
For Osmeña, helping sell rice is something that he could do.
“I will help in the selling of the rice. If they’ll ask me, we’ll help. We could do it on the front steps of City Hall at a cheaper price. And traders will come to their senses to also bring their prices down. That’s how you manage the situation,” he told a press conference.
He said there is a difference between hoarding and stocking, pointing out that people also need to store for something to eat during the non-harvest season.
“You cannot police (rice) prices. You cannot amend the laws of supply and demand. Congress cannot do that. The president said that so much rice is arriving soon. They release it and the prices will go down. I’m strongly against controlling prices because you’re like playing with fire,” said the mayor.
“I don’t want to be part of the raiders because they tend to disrupt the normal sequence of events. There is always cockfighting; you should understand that. I’m a graduate of agricultural economics,” he added. (NRC/GC )
