Today is May 1, Labor Day, a day reserved for workers. But I?ll break tradition a bit by writing not about a worker but about someone whose heart beats for the worker, or indeed the farmer.
You have a policy of importing rice, you?ll have a policy of scorning farmers. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did not invent that policy but she more than anyone has given rice farmers every reason to not want to be rice farmers.
One remark I've been hearing these last few weeks is: There's no rice crisis, it's an artificial problem manufactured by dubious groups for dubious ends. Quite funnily, I've heard it from government's defenders and detractors alike.
MANILA, Philippines - I have my own take on what we can do to stop being the basket case of Asia. I?ve always said, in reply to people who say ?Easy to criticize, but what would you do if you were running the country?,? that I?ll do only three things. Three things that can assure a past, a present and a future.
Sanjeep Lanjilal had a very nice letter last Tuesday. It was a comment on Romeo Encarnacion?s earlier letter, which appeared Thursday last week in the Letters section, titled, ?With so many talents and skills, why is RP a basket case?.?
The rice crisis may yet do something for us. That is to give a face to corruption. That is to make us grasp the crushing weight of corruption. That is to make us see that corruption kills.
The way they're going, I wouldn't be surprised if more Filipinos turned Buddhist or Islamic or downright atheist. The Catholic Church is giving them every reason to.
MANILA, Philippines - It?s not really that we don?t have alternatives, it?s simply that for the strangest reasons we somehow cannot see them. This time around though I don?t mean that in the political sense, I mean that in the sports sense.
de Quiros Files
