Hunger, stealing, and orphaned children

Just as we were discussing how we, as a nation and as a people, can do our share to sustainably and amply supply food for our hungry, the dismal news that the National Food Authority, the very agency tasked with providing sufficient food supply and food price stability, lost P100 billion in 10 years was reported!

 Not only does this serious matter need to be investigated so that the lost public funds will be returned, stealing public funds have to be stopped urgently as this type of corruption has led millions of our people to go without food.

 Hunger and poverty of millions of our people are closely linked to greed and undeserved wealth among the dishonest and corrupt. Widespread and continuing corruption, on the other hand, has so demoralized millions of our migrants and more who have expressed their desire to leave the Philippines so that they and their families can survive and be able to provide for a better present and a brighter future for themselves, on their own efforts, no thanks to the few but abusive corrupt who not only steal but even flaunt their stolen wealth publicly!

 How can anyone miss the loss of P100 billion pesos? Any Filipino can easily provide the answer to these questions.

 Follow the paper trail and one can trace the trail of corruption. The abusive, however, have become very efficient about their system of stealing public funds. From top to bottom, they have people inside the bureaucracy whose job is to clean up any trace of corruption. Or even if some sloppiness about procedures can still be traced, one can be sure, eyes suddenly turn blind or turn the other way to ensure that the abusive process continues and the targeted funds in the hands of all those who cooperated and connived in the whole process of “privatizing” public funds! When exposed, the ones exposing are the ones subjected to grueling scrutiny or ostracism – in the circle of the corrupt, truth is taboo and those who find out and expose the truth should be expelled from the circle, better yet silenced.

 There have been many such cases of corruption in our country and it is amazing how very little, if at all, has been done to really stop and penalize the abusive appropriately. Worse, public funds stolen are rarely returned to the rightful owners, the Filipino people.

 Before writing this today, Fr. Michael Coleman who visits migrant detainees at the Ushiku Detention Center, narrated about the case of one undocumented Filipino who was caught just 2 days after the birth of their 3rd child. With him in detention, his wife and 3 children ran out of funds, even for food. The wife and mother, left with very little choice, resorted to stealing bread from a convenience store near their home in Japan. She was caught stealing by cameras installed in the store.

 The shop owner understood her case and allowed her to go free. However, with 3 hungry children, she resorted to stealing bread again in the same place and yet again. The owner finally had her arrested on her 3rd attempt to steal bread for her children. While she is in jail, and her husband at the detention center, their 3 children, one infant, and two less than 7 years old, are now at an orphanage.

 What harm and misery hunger (due to much unabated corruption back in the Philippines) can cause to our millions of people, and sadly, their children both in and out of our country!

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