05-10-2008, 06:08 PM
Hypermegasuper rant:
(You have been warned)
Solving the rice problem should've started years back, probably after the Milenyo/Reming combo. IMO, there is no effective solution to this in the short to mid term. Only a long term solution holds. What's sad is that in the effort of modernizing and improving the economy of the Philippines, we seem to have forgotten that the Philippines is rich in natural resources. RICH IN NATURAL RESOURCES. We have been hearing that since we were kids. I dunno if that still holds now.
Again, IMO (sorry if it's another IMO, but I don't have any basis, as this is more of a rant), the govenment should've concentrated in agriculture for past years. Though the risks are high in such an industry, the benefits are equally high. We could have been feeding parts of the world right now, not the other way around.
A lot of the big rich families in this country has some farm somewhere in the country. They probably inherited it from their parents/grandparents, but they continued to maintain since they know that agriculture is a constant source of money. Not just constant, but a good source too. I wondered if the govenment ever wonder of taking that opportunity to improve our economy?
But that line of business is not without its ugly side. Agribusiness is still prone to corruption and the like. That is another issue I dunno how to discuss, as I'm (admittedly) not well informed/read on those problems. My fault.
We could probably blame many things for the course the country took to develop itself into a "developed" country. There are usually culprits, like Politics. But I say we can also blame finance and mathematics, the stock market and other money markets, and the internet. All these are instruments to make instant cash. Especially with the advent of the internet, a simple Forex trader could make $4000 in fifteen minutes. How tempting is that? (Yeap, I did that. But of course I didn't use real cash, I just used a realtime forex trading simulator.)
Basically, it's these kinds of things that made people seek office desk jobs. If the government had improved our agricultre way back, people wouldn't have to flock to cities to make money. They could make money from their backyards. How cool is that? (For one, Manila wouldn't be so crammed, it would have much less traffic, and it wouldn't be one of the most polluted cities in the planet.)
And if there is opportunity to make a good living at different parts of the country, then we would be more united. Imagine, for an example, people from Pangasinan will be trading their harvest with people from Davao. Or other parts of the country trade with out parts. Then we could export to other parts of the world. That'd be awesome.
Although at this point in time, it seems such an idealistic picture. A dream. I dunno if reality still has space for something like that to happen.
Probably, if all those happened, we would only now have a fuel crisis and electricity problem in a lesser scale. I read somewhere that some town/barangay/province (not sure) in the country is self-supportive in terms of food. Yeah, it has enough food for its people since they concentrated on improving their agriculture collectively. And that's quite recent. While everyone's having problems filling their stomachs, these guys can chill and deal with the other problems.
I feel guilty, in a sense, for not doing my part to help alleviate the current situation. As I'm a student of finance and mathematics, a stock market gamer (simulation only, still don't have cash for the real thing), and enjoy the rapid updates on the markets due to the internet, I'm totally contradicting my entire rant. Call it mixed emotions or whatever. Really, I'm confused. It sucks.
If math wasn't so rational, these problems may have not risen. Imagine, at the root of all these problems is math, not money, math. If 1+1 didn't equal to 2 but, let's say, to 1.86 due to humanitarian reasons, I wonder how this world would be? (Ok, this last paragraph is totally absurd and I'm totally contradicting myself.)
(You have been warned)
Solving the rice problem should've started years back, probably after the Milenyo/Reming combo. IMO, there is no effective solution to this in the short to mid term. Only a long term solution holds. What's sad is that in the effort of modernizing and improving the economy of the Philippines, we seem to have forgotten that the Philippines is rich in natural resources. RICH IN NATURAL RESOURCES. We have been hearing that since we were kids. I dunno if that still holds now.
Again, IMO (sorry if it's another IMO, but I don't have any basis, as this is more of a rant), the govenment should've concentrated in agriculture for past years. Though the risks are high in such an industry, the benefits are equally high. We could have been feeding parts of the world right now, not the other way around.
A lot of the big rich families in this country has some farm somewhere in the country. They probably inherited it from their parents/grandparents, but they continued to maintain since they know that agriculture is a constant source of money. Not just constant, but a good source too. I wondered if the govenment ever wonder of taking that opportunity to improve our economy?
But that line of business is not without its ugly side. Agribusiness is still prone to corruption and the like. That is another issue I dunno how to discuss, as I'm (admittedly) not well informed/read on those problems. My fault.
We could probably blame many things for the course the country took to develop itself into a "developed" country. There are usually culprits, like Politics. But I say we can also blame finance and mathematics, the stock market and other money markets, and the internet. All these are instruments to make instant cash. Especially with the advent of the internet, a simple Forex trader could make $4000 in fifteen minutes. How tempting is that? (Yeap, I did that. But of course I didn't use real cash, I just used a realtime forex trading simulator.)
Basically, it's these kinds of things that made people seek office desk jobs. If the government had improved our agricultre way back, people wouldn't have to flock to cities to make money. They could make money from their backyards. How cool is that? (For one, Manila wouldn't be so crammed, it would have much less traffic, and it wouldn't be one of the most polluted cities in the planet.)
And if there is opportunity to make a good living at different parts of the country, then we would be more united. Imagine, for an example, people from Pangasinan will be trading their harvest with people from Davao. Or other parts of the country trade with out parts. Then we could export to other parts of the world. That'd be awesome.
Although at this point in time, it seems such an idealistic picture. A dream. I dunno if reality still has space for something like that to happen.
Probably, if all those happened, we would only now have a fuel crisis and electricity problem in a lesser scale. I read somewhere that some town/barangay/province (not sure) in the country is self-supportive in terms of food. Yeah, it has enough food for its people since they concentrated on improving their agriculture collectively. And that's quite recent. While everyone's having problems filling their stomachs, these guys can chill and deal with the other problems.
I feel guilty, in a sense, for not doing my part to help alleviate the current situation. As I'm a student of finance and mathematics, a stock market gamer (simulation only, still don't have cash for the real thing), and enjoy the rapid updates on the markets due to the internet, I'm totally contradicting my entire rant. Call it mixed emotions or whatever. Really, I'm confused. It sucks.
If math wasn't so rational, these problems may have not risen. Imagine, at the root of all these problems is math, not money, math. If 1+1 didn't equal to 2 but, let's say, to 1.86 due to humanitarian reasons, I wonder how this world would be? (Ok, this last paragraph is totally absurd and I'm totally contradicting myself.)
"Numbers are not part of the real world; they're part of something else."
-Prof. Rolly Panopio, UPLB Math Division
-Prof. Rolly Panopio, UPLB Math Division
