I really cannot fathom why our food is expensive. If you go to a restaurant, you will notice that what was only P95 before, is now P108. That is 12% increase. If you ask the owners what makes them raise prices, it is the cost of the ingredients, the vegetables, especially which come from Baguio. The meaty restaurants would say that it is because of the imported foods that the animals eat and the injections to make them grow fat. So it is better to just eat vegetabes so that you would not eat the chemicals in those injectables that the animals get.
Yet time and again, I have written that the only way we can lower the prices of vegetables is for the government to have its own transport system. Add to that its own buying stations so that the middle agents will be eliminated in the computation of prices. If the government owns the transport system and the buying stations, then it need not include the vat or e-vat in the selling of vegetables. Now why is it so difficult to do that?
I can only surmise that some people are earning a lot from the current system that is why, we the hoi polloi are suffering much. These people who could have bankrolled the election of current officials have gotten their hands on the necks of officials and so the latter refuse to act on the matter of the need for cheap foods.
What about cheap transport?
I am still wondering until now why we have to pay for airport tax. Should there not be
freedom of mobility? Why tax travelers. The Philippines is composed of 7,100 ++ islands. So we expect people to come from one island or another. Nowshouldn't the government have a different frame of mind for tackling flying activities? Why tax the people when they did not choose to be born to a country composed of so many islands, so that we have to take a ship or an airplane to visit our relatives in an island?
Our overseas working relatives and friends are in a worst lot. they bring in dollars, remit dollars from abroad and yet they have to pay taxes when they leave the country. This country is being made afloat by their remittances yet they get the least benefits from here. Many cannot even afford to buy a house and lot out of their earnings from abroad. Still others can only purchase those bird-like units in condominiums that sell for a few thousand pesos of lease vbery month yet would take them fifteen to 25 years to pay.
We have only a few years to lie on this planet. thank God, we don't have to deal with Godzilla and the monsters he battles while destroying buildings in western countries. But then we have Godzilla prices for foods and travel.
The Gods must be shaking their heads. Our country is blessed with so many beautiful natural resources -- water, fertile soil, blue oceans, -- yet our people are hungry, or experiencing great difficulty eking out a living. Just a while ago, I saw a man, sleeping on the sidewalk. The other day, I saw one, by the street. It is so common to see poor people around. Then, everytime I ride the jeep, a child or two enter and give passengers envelopes for us to insert a bill inside. Why? Why is this happening? They are supposed to be enjoying their childhood. Then you also meet Badjao beggars. A mother and her child were fetched by a young man sniffing a handkerchief -- most probably dipped in rugby. He has turned drug-addict in Manila. Or has he been so in his original province? The government has not curbed the influx of migrants from the provinces which makes overcrowding a real problem to tackle as it exacerbates government services. .
Yet compare the faces of officials, when they assumed office and now. You will see a great difference in size. Except for PNoy who still looks the same, the others have more bloated faces now.
God please stretch our patience some more. Give us strong legs to join Million Marches for issues that matter to our being human.
Amen
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