Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Editorial: Understanding the floods and the rice
THE vacillating price of rice that bob up when unnoticed and only ease down a little (much higher than its original price though) when government intervenes, and the uncertainty of making it home when rains start to pour in the evening should spur us into thinking not just of the price today, nor the flood later this evening. Rather, the price and the floods in the future.
While it seems that both these concerns have barged into our consciousness and reality only now, these actually took some time to happen. Both events barging into us now, just goes to show that several fundamentals have been disregarded as we rushed on to development full of pride about our beloved Davao City -- the city that does not have typhoon, has the second best water in the world, the city of bountiful harvest, the city of superlatives.
Uhuh, with the downpours we are getting of late, we don't need typhoons. The rains are destructive enough; just imagine being flooded at least twice a week. And with all those floodwaters rampaging all over, it won't be long before these will get into our water supply. Just wait and see. With 50-year-old pipes serving the water in flood-prone areas, anything can happen.
And then there's our rice supply, or lack of it, to worry about as well. With just one country now willing to serve our import needs, we cannot expect much in the future, if we don't do things our way and generate from within.
Most urgent are government safety nets. For every increase in rice prices, the line for subsidized rice will lengthen, and demand for more imported subsidized rice will increase. Except that, there might not be enough rice supply out there that other countries will be willing to sell.
For every flooded street is another family suffering leading to increased medical needs, immediate relief, and even relocation.
As our city is battered by these double worries, it is the poor that suffers most. But while government should take care of the immediate needs of the poor, it must likewise focus on the poor in the future as well. How they will fare if the situations remain the same.
There is more to these floods and soaring rice prices than just immediate solutions. Rather, these double worries are just telling us that we, as a people and a government, have flunked in the past -- raping our environment, allowing giant logging companies to denude our mountains because they were the ones bringing in the dollars before, allowing multi-national plantations today to clear what remained of these mountains because they are the ones bringing in the dollars now, and allowing multibillion investments in mining to finish off and sluice down our mountains because these promise to bring the dollars in the near future.
While right in our midst are hundreds of people in hundreds of NFA rice retail stores waiting in line for their day's supply, while those not waiting in line are busy washing off the mud brought in by the floods in their living rooms.
This is today. How much worse will it be tomorrow? And still we are not hearing much from our local officials on how they intend to craft our future, aside from giving free rice and promising the completion of a drainage system. Isn't it about time that we look further into the future and provide policies that will ensure a better Davao?
