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I just got off the phone with my family. While I do my weekly roundup of phone calls to family members from all over The Philippines, the conversation as of late has tended to veer towards the current rice crisis (or non-crisis if you ask Arroyo).

Mind you, my family, they are not political inclined folks, but they do watch TV Patrol and this gives them an inkling as to the pulse of the news around The Philippines. Well, here’s a collective summary so far regarding my conversations with my family.

GANADOR! Ang taas ng presyo ngayon! (Ganador, the price is way up right now!)

Ganador, a more expensive brand of rice, is the preferred type of rice for most of my family members.

Anyway, they are feeling the rise in the prices, and they are not liking it. Fuel, they can live with the fluctuation. But rice, not that, it’s too much of a staple, that fluctuations are not a welcome sight.

One of my cousins also didn’t like it much, and she has a child to feed. I don’t blame her. She thinks that it’s all Arroyo’s fault. She thinks that prices are being manipulated. And she also thinks that big companies are in collusion with the government to cause the current crisis. One word again reared its ugly head — Corruption.

This was the big consensus with my other conversations. I tried not to put in my own two cents into the issue, so as to not sway their opinions.

But, it’s an eye opener, but not shocking or surprising at all.

In conclusion, if my family is the typical Filipino family, then Arroyo has yet another big political bombshell facing her. Because with this rice crisis, it seems, conclusions are already being drawn. And here it is,

Rice crisis, corruption, collusion with rice companies, high prices, mismanagement, Arroyo at fault.

Whether these opinions are wrong or right, they are still the actual views of many of my family members. It was a small sample, a very small sample, not scientific at all, but it was interesting to note these views nonetheless.

tags: arroyo administration