Lowering the prices of onions, rice, sugar and other basic commodities by way of importation is NOT something for Filipinos to be happy about.

Even if rice will soon cost P20 per kilo as promised by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., it will still amount to naught (ultimately) or will amount to aggravating our economic plight under such a situation.

If what the government does to solve our food shortage crisis and all the other problems we have in the country is always through a “band-aid” solution, then we can only expect more of the same binds we’ve been having. The wounds of the country are deep and many, and they need surgery to heal and recover.

Progress is no instant noodle

Do we really have to embrace the deluge of foreign products and “investments” via the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) so much so that such embracing will, in the end, decimate our local products and producers and from the outset soften/imperil the Filipino initiative to improve Filipino capacity to develop (scientifically and technologically) our very own just as other nations have done for themselves before they became competitive and good players in the world market?

Why put our local commerce and industries, together with our local producers and agricultural workers, at an anomalous disadvantage by joining RCEP which could rout the nation’s “elusive” dream of progress (real progress), consequently? The RCEP program may be good and ideal, but certainly not for a country like the Philippines that is yet to develop and modernize its means and capacity to produce.

With this world’s largest trade pact, we cannot compete. We can only trade our soul for a few “pieces of silver.”

Study the nations that yoked with RCEP and those that rejected it with an open mind, then perchance (hopefully) you’ll get to realize what you are trying to “achieve” for the motherland.

There has been a prevailing international reservation on the latent effects of RCEP’s policies that are considered potentially inimical to member nations, especially and markedly to the poor and developing ones that hunger and thirst for mammon such as ours.

Don’t bite the bait

Our farmers or the agricultural sector is not mum on the issue. They have warned the government of RCEP’s “disastrous impact” on our nation.

And Sens. Risa Hontiveros and Imee Marcos were aptly saluted for their opposition to it as they indeed appear to be the “last men standing up for the local producers.” RCEP will only drive our already complacent officials to further complacency -- to rev up even more our predicament and miseries as a people. No excuses, please, sirs and madams. Resist the RCEP lure.