Press Release
September 3, 2008

Filipinos crave food, not cha-cha -- Loren

Senator Loren Legarda urged yesterday the government to bury its quest for charter change (cha-cha) and to buckle down to work instead in solving the country's many pressing problems, like poverty, hunger and the deteriorating peace-and-order situation.

"Where do the government's priorities lie?" Legarda asked of the government, noting renewed efforts by its allies at the House of Representatives to amend the constitution to effect a change in the form of government.

The senator said any cha-cha initiative would be seen by the public, rightly or wrongly, as an effort to extend the term of the present administration beyond 2010.

"The people have become too politically jaded not to see through the real intent of cha-cha, as pushed by this administration," she said.

Instead of having charter change tabled for consideration by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the administration must endeavor to "put food on the table of hungry Filipino families," the chair of the Senate Economic Affairs Committee said.

She added it would be the height of government callousness to seek term extension while surveys show more and more Filipinos are getting hit hard by poverty and hunger.

Legarda cited a Social Weather Station report that 2.9 million Filipino families are experiencing involuntary hunger, and another study that 24.5 million Filipinos are poor.

"Political survival must take the back seat to our countrymen's very survival," she said.

According to Legarda, the government would do well to use its time and resources in ensuring food security and in alleviating poverty.

She said that while the Philippines used to export rice to other countries, it had been reduced to importing the staple, after improving palay production had been neglected by the government.

"It's ironic because we host the International Rice Research Institute in Laguna, yet we cannot ensure 100 percent of our rice needs, despite the availability of high-yield varieties."

Legarda said the government must go back to the basics, increasing agricultural yields so that it can use for the country's other needs the foreign currency it allots for food importations.

Before the country can industrialize, Legarda said it must first have a solid agricultural base.

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