BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR

MALACAÑANG yesterday asked senators to set aside inquiries and focus instead on helping the administration address rising prices of rice and other commodities.

Senate investigations, including its planned probe on the alleged rice cartel, only create trouble, said chief presidential legal counsel Sergio Apostol.

"Tigilan na nila. Tumulong naman sila. Stop investigating, start helping…Namemerwisyo na ang Senado," Apostol said.

"Pag tumulong sila, wala nang price crisis… Kaso ginugulo nila… Wala na ba silang pagtingin sa bayan?" he added.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the rice situation should be treated with "an appreciation of how we figure in the global web" instead of looking at it with a "myopic eye."

Bunye reiterated the rice crisis is not limited to the Philippines.

Citing the article "The Food Chain" that came out in the New York Times last week, he said the drought in Australia brought about by global warming is one of the factors that contributed to the rising prices of rice in the world.

"Recent coverage in international publications support what we have been saying all along: the rice problem is not unique to the Philippines nor is attributable to the President as her critics would want the public to believe," he said.

The article said Australia’s rice production went down by about 98 percent after farmers "resorted to abandoning rice as a crop and shifting to those which are less water-dependent, to the detriment of countries which rely on rice as a staple food."

The report said this led to the collapse of Australia’s rice production which is seen as "one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months – increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen."