Every day, we are challenged by rhetorical questions: who can sleep at night after listening to stories of a widow who just want to end her life due to poverty, or an internally displaced person who lost his mom due to their unlivable situation after the Marawi siege, while the President spits insults to divert the attention of the listeners to his language and charismatic leadership?
Earlier this week a senate hearing was conducted due to the plumetting prices of Palay (unhusked rice). During the aforesaid hearing, farmers and civil society organizations raised their concern that farmgate prices of palay dropped as low as P7 per kilo, leaving farmers in a disastrous position. Thus pointing out that price drop was caused by the influx of cheap imported rice as import restrictions were removed under Republic Act 11203 or infamously known as Rice Liberalization Law.
At the onset of the Duterte administration, I shared the optimism of my good friends along with millions fellow Filipinos for a substantial and genuine change especially in agricultural policies.
According to the 2018 Survey on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) from April to September 2018 released last April 2019 revealed an estimated 2.3 million OFWs. This also spells a total of 235.9 billion pesos of remittances sent home to the Philippines during the same period.
Right now, what’s left in Marawi are just the ruins. But the greatest ruins can only be found inside their minds — deep-seated invisible scars — seeking for healing, not insults and disregard from our government.
Gratitude was written all over the faces of the Missionaries of the Assumption (m.a.) Sisters who celebrated three decades of their existence and commitment to serve God’s poor in all their mission areas.
In this political climate, when we our senses have become accustomed to killings, constant slurs and curses by the President, and thinning lines between the truth telling and acts of disinformation, it becomes more convenient for people to internalize aggression and hate if these are perpetually normalized.
Can poor Filipino families now rejoice over a new law that promises greater access to Philippine health care?
As citizens of one nation who are direct recipients of our government’s lapses and misguided decisions, we should never be contended with trusting our government. Trust, without criticizing the wrong ways of achieving and sustaining it, is mere idolatry.
President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa complex earlier this week. Out of the more than nine thousand word speech of Duterte he only mentioned the word ‘agriculture’ once.
