Monday, October 12, 2009

Prices of goods skyrocketing: call in the National Army

Food prices are spiralling out of control. I went to the market and found that a kilo of potatoes cost 120 pesos, while a bunch of petchays cost 200,000. 200,000? err...sorry...it's not Prospero Petchay's LWUA party I'm talking about. I was referring to, err, Pichay. Pechays cost 60 pesos.:-)

The DTI imposed a price ceiling, a very nice move on the part of government. And they are thinking of imposing a ceiling to gasoline prices, a very, very good move indeed! Not if Energy secretary Angelo Reyes is to be asked. He wants his cut. And he can't do it with a price ceiling.

How about imposing a price ceiling for medicines? A nice idea, don't you think? Will government do it? I hope they do because people desperately need those medicines since huge portions of Metro Manila are plagued by dengue and other water-borne diseases.

Rice, that precious commodity rose by about one to five pesos, depends on where you buy yours. Mine, I buy it either in Makro (now SM Hypermart) or Puregold. If you buy it from an NFA dealer, you'll buy it two pesos higher. But, that comes with dirt.

Some businessmen would surely take advantage of the situation and either hoard some stuff or rationalize higher price tags. These people should be arrested pronto, paraded and shot in full public view. That will make profiteers think twice before they even do something.

What government should think about is this--this situation has the potential of igniting food riots. People have no money, especially those who lost both their homes and their pieces of property during the storm. And desperate times calls for desperate measures to most people. Remember the social aggression theory? Riots are indeed possible during these critical times, and for government, that means a national security issue.

If government wants to avert such a scenario, they need to act fast. The situation is slowly slipping from their hands. This is an opportunity rarely missed by Leaders with true Machiavellian characters. Anybody with a rifle will surely see this as a chance to make History. Or remake one.

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