Ilonggos should not consider it a big deal that President Rodrigo Duterte ignored Iloilo City Hall’s invitation to attend this year’s Dinagyang Festival, which closed over the weekend. The president can’t attend every festival, social meeting, political event, business gathering, or religious ceremony; if Duterte accepts one invitation but rejects another, he will be accused of playing favorites.

Iloilo City is one of many locales across the country celebrating the feast of the Santo Niño this time of year.

In addition, whether it was a scheduling conflict, health reasons, or just deciding not to attend, the safety of a sitting president is a paramount concern. With the president earlier tagging Iloilo City as the “most shabulized,” along with threatening to kill former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog for being an illegal drugs “protector,” it would have been a security nightmare for Regional Police Office-6.

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The Family Planning Organization of Philippines-Iloilo chapter (FPOP-Iloilo) reportedly distributed thousands of condoms to revelers during the Dinagyang Festival over the weekend. Program manager Monalisa Diones said the organization chose the festival as a perfect venue to promote safe sex and spread public awareness regarding the rising number of HIV/AIDS cases in Iloilo City.

We suggest that FPOP-Iloilo visit barangays and educate couples not only on safe sex but minimizing the production of babies; it is a major reason why many Filipinos still wallow in abject poverty – overpopulation. With a lack of proper education and training, many couples living in slums continue to fill their households with babies. The number of mouths to be fed is not proportioned to their income and many continue to live below the poverty line despite working like dogs.

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With Iloilo looking to harvest one million metric tons of rice this year, traders across the country are reportedly expected to import 1.2 million tons of the commodity, which came about after the National Food Authority approved the initial applications from 180 rice traders seeking permits to import 1.186 million tons of five to 25 percent broken rice.

The larger purchase is also expected to strengthen export prices for Vietnam and Thailand, the key suppliers.

According to Reuters, prices in Vietnam fell last week ahead of the country’s largest harvest; while the Thai market is likely to see additional supply towards the end of January.

Dr. Sailila E. Abdula, acting executive director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), rallied workers to support the proposed Rice Tariffication Act, or Senate Bill 1998, which aims to replace import restrictions on rice with tariffs.

He said “cost-effective technology” should be further generated for farmers to survive the possible influx of cheap rice from the international market.

Under the bill, already signed by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhilRice will receive P3 billion every year for six years, which will be used for “developing, propagating, and promoting inbred rice seeds to rice farmers and in organizing rice farmers into seed growers associations to be engaged in seed production and trade.”/WDJ