Is there an impending rice shortage ? Despite government assurances that there will be an adequate supply of this dietary staple, the indications are not good. President Arroyo said that although prices are bound to rise due to domestic and international factors, supply will be sufficient. Should we believe her ? Consider the following facts.

Senator Mar Roxas, himself a former trade secretary, identified three signs of an impending crisis—the country’s traditional rice sources such as Thailand and Vietnam could not commit to any volume, the price of rice has jumped sharply in the world market, and Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has suggested that people cut their normal serving of rice from one cup to one half.

President Arroyo requested Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to guarantee the Philippines up to 1.5 million metric tons of rice, in itself an unusual step. Is Vietnam in a position to deliver ? The Vietnamese government announced on Friday that it would cut rice exports by nearly a quarter this year. It hopes that keeping more rice inside the country would hold down prices for its own people. Read the rest of this entry »

Voting 9 to 6, the justices of the Supreme court upheld the right of former NEDA Chief Romulo Neri to invoke executive privilege in refusing to further testify before the Senate. The decision in the case of “Romulo Neri vs. Senate Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations, Senate Committee on Trade and Commerce, and Senate Committee on National Defense and Security” was penned by Justice Teresita J. Leonardo de Castro, and concurred in by Justices Quisumbing, Corona, Tinga, Nazario, Velasco, Nachura, Reyes and the newly-appointed Justice Arturo Brion. All of the concurring justices, except for Justice Leo Quisumbing, are appointees of President Arroyo.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno, dissented together with Justices Santiago, Martinez, Carpio-Morales and Azcuna. Justice Antonio Carpio issued a dissenting and concurring opinion which, in essence, sides with the dissenting magistrates. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a predisposition to dwell on Good Friday even when its already Easter Sunday.

I am not a great devotee of the standard rituals of the Catholic Easter mass. We all know the story and how it ends, so its like watching a familiar late night movie, you can’t wait for the good parts: the dimmed lights are brightened and the choir sings the Halleluiah chorus, we rejoice, Lent is over and we go forth, to hunt for Easter eggs and return to our carnivorous ways.

But my mind and heart is still in Good Friday mode, not least because work starts tomorrow. So I find kinship and comfort in the perspective adopted by Sheila Cassidy in her classic book on contemporary Lenten reflections, Good Friday People. The world is an evil place and we will not be spared from suffering. The Easter bunny will soon enough end up as rabbit stew. That, in Cassidy’s words:

As thinking, rational human beings we must always struggle to make sense of the dual realities of our life as Christians: the existence of appalling wickedness and suffering, and our belief in a loving God.

Columnist Juan Mercado defines Good Friday People in the Philippine context.