EDITORIAL - There is no fake rice

Rice, because it is a staple food, is something Filipinos are very familiar with. And why not? Under ideal circumstances, Filipinos eat rice at least three times a day. Under difficult and less than ideal circumstances, they struggle to eat at least once a day of the staple. Being so much a part of their lives, they get to know rice like the palm of their hand. They know what it looks like, how it feels, weighs, smells, and tastes.

Now along comes fake rice, or at least stories of it, popping up as occasional cases in isolated areas, supposedly making sick those who eat it. As a result, everybody gets caught up in the ensuing kerfuffle. Politicians gleefully jump into the frenzy, becoming instant experts from whom media feels obligated to source a nifty comment or two.

But what is fake rice? Fake rice, according to the mills of the rumor-churning kind, is actually plastic pellets that, wittingly or unwittingly, get mixed into the staple. But why would plastic pellets, whether wittingly or unwittingly, get mixed with grains of rice? If the mixing is unintentional, how come nobody knows where and when the unintended mixing happened when the route of rice, from field to plate, is easily traceable?

If the mixing is with purpose, in which case those responsible will never admit how it was done, it still is a mystery why anyone would do such a thing at all. If the intention is to get somebody sick, mixing in a few plastic pellets (putting in too much would blow the cover) is a very poor and unreliable shot. Man has been known to survive far worse accidental ingestions of foreign objects, such as coins, watches, even knives.

If it is a means to cheat on content, then the cheater is doing a very poor job of it. In the latest supposed case, only a couple or two got to accidentally ingest the corrupted staple -not massive enough to earn even an indecent buck from the scheme. So it couldn't be an act of commercial fraud or economic sabotage. And before anyone tries to stretch it further, rice is a poor weapon of mass destruction in case terrorists try passing off plastic pellets as legit grains.

So what is all this hullabaloo then? In case you haven't noticed, the yarn about fake rice came at a time when there is so much fuss about fake news. It makes perfect sense for the two to be part of the same whole. Fake news, though, has far more gullible victims than suckers of fake rice. After all, we know rice, remember? Even half-cooked rice, unlike half-cooked news, never fools a palate rendered sophisticated by constant chewing. There is no fake rice.