EDITORIAL - Eat less rice

Requiring people to eat less rice simply because the government cannot provide ample supply of the staple is ridiculous, if not downright stupid. And it is also illegal, as it violates a person's individual rights.

The government can regulate the supply of rice in times of crisis. But there is no rice crisis anyone can think of. What is simply happening is that the government has failed to ensure rice sufficiency because of unclear priorities and inefficient programs.

For as long as there is rice to eat, the government cannot stop people from eating as much as they want. It cannot even interfere with the amounts of rice served at eateries. Some serve heaping portions, others in smaller servings, but always in accordance with a customer's capacity to pay, not consumption.

Leftover rice has reportedly become a problem, it is true. But the solution there is to find means to use such leftovers, not by curtailing the right of people to order in accordance with their wishes. Let us not become a garrison state simply because government got lost.

It is incredible how government can come up with the craziest proposals such as curtailing the ability of people to eat as much rice as they can and yet remain totally blind to all the things that truly need curtailing.

For example, why cannot our senators restrain themselves from conducting all those hearings which do nothing for the country except to distract us away from the more important things and to further the political interests of some at the expense of their enemies.

All of these hearings are supposedly done in aid of legislation, yet no meaningful legislation has yet to emerge from all of these proceedings. On the other hand, such hearings take away from the proper forums the appropriate means to try cases, serving instead as a venue to try people by publicity.

This circus we can clearly do without. Yet no effort has ever been made to stop, or even lessen the frequency of their occurrence. But when it comes to eating rice, which is a basic personal and human right of a person, the government now wants to implement restraints because it failed in its mission to properly feed?