We have P29 kilo processed rice in the region!
Still almost a full 50 percent more expensive than the promised, the fabled mythical P20 rice that the zealots proudly proclaimed was in our future—and also entirely unrelated, because these sacks are from a separate program entirely.
The average cost of rice remains significantly higher (P50 is cheap and prices can go significantly higher) and, for the most part, the cost of living remains high.
I took a jeep the other day and was quickly reminded of how, back in my school days, only what, a decade, decade and a half removed? The fares were nearly half of what they are now.
This is actually the case for most prices of most things I can compare with the dregs of what memory I have left. I remember back in the day not long ago when I could get two Yumburgers™ from Jollibee™ for the price of what one goes for nowadays (I am still a few years removed from the third decade, so my reminiscence is not as far as that of others.)
The price of crude oil has also gone significantly up in much the same manner; here in Baguio, we have such expensive gasoline that I am rather satisfied owning no vehicles of my own; not that I could afford them anyway.
Nowadays, “off-brand” liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) costs me nearly a thousand pesos to buy, when back in the day I could get the same 11-kilo tank of a “branded” variety at somewhere in the vicinity of five to six hundred pesos.
When I was a wee little lad, we would buy meat at the market for significantly less than what it costs today; back in the day, we could fairly regularly still get beef owing to the price point, while nowadays, it’s all pork and cheaper cuts at that.
I could write an entire couple of pages just listing down the things I remember having gotten significantly more expensive—which is everything, but to do so would be a pointless endeavor. We all know everything’s shot up in price.
What is the point of listing all of these?
Well, normally this column is for my musings and complaints, and that still holds true, but I think I just want to point out that wages have hardly kept up with the costs of living increasing, and increasing as a result of all sorts of factors combining in a cocktail of economic pressures.
But my disdain for the recent government aside and my hatred of the economy, I think it is just as important that we acknowledge that, for the majority of Filipinos (and to a certain extent, all societies internationally), economic stability is far from a granted, automatic state. Such is the consequence of a system wherein the majority of the money is kept in the pockets of a minority of the populace.
I am not radical enough to suggest a revolution. But honestly, revolution or otherwise, something has to give—the question is just whether our backs will break before the rider is thrown off by the bucking.
