'We can expect more disconnect
between stark
reality and gilded pronouncements from Gloria Arroyo.'
The agriculture department has
announced that it will soon launch a P70 million piglet dispersal and feed
subsidy program for backyard hog growers hit by typhoon Frank. The program, DA
said, is part of its efforts to rehabilitate farms and fishponds hit by the
typhoon.
That's the kind of short-gestating projects that the typhoon
ravaged areas need to get back on their feet. After 90 days, a piglet reaches
marketable size. The grower gets additional income. There's more food to go
around, easing the pressure of demand running after commodities in short supply.
We were about to praise the DA for the project when we
reached the point where the news item said the piglets and the feeds would be
distributed in Central and Southern Luzon.
Central and Southern Luzon? It's news to us that these areas
were ravaged by last month's typhoon. We saw television clips showing the
devastation in Aklan and Iloilo. Relief efforts were focused on these provinces.
Is the DA telling us that Central and Southern Luzon too were battered by Frank
even if at a magnitude less than the damage in Panay?
There's a town in the interior part of Iloilo that serves as
the livestock trading center for the whole island. It's reasonable to assume
that the stocks, mainly cattle, have also been decimated by Frank and need
replacement. Aklan has also lately emerged as another hog-growing center, with
bulk of the output shipped to Manila. That province surely needs
government-subsidized feeds more than, say, Bulacan or Batangas.
This is the kind of misplaced allocation of funds that makes
people cynical about the purported billions the government has allotted for
rehabilitation of typhoon-damaged areas. The victims have not seen the color of
the rehabilitation money. The suspicion is the funds got hijacked by
politicians, that is, assuming there have indeed been releases by Malacañang.
If government could do this to disaster victims, promising
them assistance it has no intention of delivering, how then could people believe
it would deliver on the P4 billion "Katas ng VAT" already in the pipeline and
P10 billion more in commitments?
There's a disconnect between actions and words. And we can expect more
disconnect between stark reality and gilded pronouncements when Gloria Arroyo
unveils her "nationwide unified social welfare" program during her coming State
of the Nation Address.
