Given our abundant arable lands and rich natural resources, we could grow enough of our own food, export those raw or processed products that we are unable to consume, and build an industrial economy. But the Philippine state’s inexcusable failure to develop our agriculture, over the decades, has instead kept us mired in periodic crises over insufficient supply, unaffordable prices, and dependence on imports.
Again we are experiencing the usual finger-pointing due to the shortage of rice in the country’s markets over the past eight months, leading to the inordinate rise in prices of the staple and other basic necessities. Inflation leapt to a five-year high of 5.7 percent in July, bringing the average inflation rate to 4.5 percent in the first seven months of 2018.
And what solution has the Duterte government adopted to this crisis/controversy?
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