Hunger amidst plenty

The December 2011 survey of the SWS (Social Weather Stations) confirms that an estimated 21.5 percent or 4.3 million families nationwide did not have anything to eat in the last three months. Not only are there hungry millions, the number of hungry Filipinos is rising, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao.

If indeed, the pork barrel is given to Congress because they are most knowledgeable about the needs of their constituents, why do the number of hungry Filipinos in their constituencies continue to increase?

Is hunger not a legitimate, a most urgent problem and need of Filipinos and constituents? Can the pork barrel recipients in Congress not see through this most basic, most fundamental need of the people in their areas?

Does hunger not rate as the topmost priority of our people all over the country? Cannot those in Congress understand that millions of Filipinos and their families continue to experience hunger and do not have anything to eat at all? And the number of hungry Filipinos is increasing, not decreasing through the years!

Contrast their stark hunger and poverty with the unabated wealth and asset accumulation of those the poor have elected and entrusted to take care of them.

Cannot the Executive Branch do anything to effectively channel and use public funds to prioritize the sustainable feeding of our hungry Filipinos?

Can they not compel the use of pork barrel, primarily and largely, to sustainably feed the poor, provide employment, education, and health services to them?

Cannot the present government, from national to local levels, declare a moratorium on non-essential infrastructure projects and instead declare a war vs. hunger and poverty at the soonest time this year?

One merely has to look at the annual budgets prepared for national and local government use to understand that there are funds , huge funds, available to feed our people.

Sadly, our hungry millions are not prioritized.

Instead, the millions of pesos are prioritized for roads, bridges, flyovers, and markets as if infrastructure mattered more than human beings!

How many poor can be fed, for example, if the P600 million+ budget for the Cebu flyover is used instead to sustainably feed them? Cannot the legislators see the face of the hungry struggling to survive day after day? And they still choose to prioritize infra projects to the more basic needs of survival of millions of our people?

Aside from public funds, our rich natural resources, which should have been tapped to meet and secure the food needs of our people, are being depleted because of greed and ineffective governance.

Even galunggong now is imported and no longer accessible and affordable to the poor.

How can a nation that boasts about being believers of God ignore the daily faces of hungry millions?

What have the churches and religious groups done as well to feed God’s people?

How many hungry people, for example, can be fed if only Congress and the richer Churches decide not to turn on their air-conditioners even just for an hour or two or more per day, per week and give the air-con dividend to feed the hungry?

Cannot media and our schools collaborate with all others for an all-out campaign to feed our people, to secure food for all Filipinos?

Cannot the more privileged Filipinos sponsor one hungry Filipino or one hungry family soonest and pressure the Executive and Legislative branches of government to set aside the biggest percentage of their funds to feed our hungry millions?

Cannot the believers express their faith by feeding the Lord’s people?

Cannot everyone manage their waste and garbage so that the millions spent for landfills and garbage trucks, gas and spare parts can instead go to feed the hungry?

Can we not all, individually or as groups or as a nation pledge to stop hunger in our midst soonest and be able to face the Lord happily and say, Lord, we have fed Your people?

 “I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.” (Matthew 25:40). “ I tell you, whenever yourefused to help one of these least important one, you refused to help me. These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.” Matthew 25-45-46).

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