As 2022 drew to a close, an image went viral: one red onion, sitting forlornly on a weighing scale, costing P43.20 as a kilo was priced at P720.
Always quick to laugh at tribulations, Pinoys exchanged New Year 2023 greetings with onions as the theme: red onions in a Ferrero Rocher 24-chocolate container as holiday gift; Gollum of the Lord of the Rings holding up his “Precious” – a red onion; an onion set in a gold ring; onion red as the Pantone color of 2023 (it’s “Viva Magenta,” a shade of crimson that does look onion red).
At P675 online for the container of Ferrero Rocher, a 24-onion pack would be more expensive.
Upon my request, one of my cousins emailed me screenshots of onion prices as of last Dec. 30 at an affordable grocery chain, ALDI, in her Palm Beach neighborhood in Florida.
Consider the prices in that affluent neighborhood, and weep: $2.69 per 2 lbs. (about P150 for 900 grams, at Saturday’s official exchange rate) for red and white US-grown onions, and $2.49 (about P139 per 900 gms) for yellow.
There’s a cheaper variety: sweet yellow onion imported from Peru, sold at $3.99 for a five-pound bag (about $1.60 or P90 for 900 gms).
Apparently in a bid to ease sticker shock, the Department of Agriculture (DA) had this sage advice to consumers: don’t buy onions by the kilo.
President and concurrent Agriculture Secretary Ferdinand Marcos Jr. might need to undertake some damage control for that let-them-eat-cake remark.
* * *
Last Friday, the DA said a price cap would be imposed on onions nationwide, at P250 a kilo – but only for one week beginning yesterday.
Whether wholesalers and retailers would comply with the price cap, or simply hold on to their onions for a week, remains to be seen.
Last October, the government had capped onion prices at P170 a kilo. Instead of going down, the prices went up, up, up, hitting P720 in the final week of 2022.
The onion problem eclipsed previous concerns over the prices of sugar, which still refuse to go down to the government’s hoped-for price of P70 a kilo for white refined, despite the arrival of 150,000 metric tons of imports.
Fourth quarter surveys showed that Filipinos gave the Marcos 2.0 administration the lowest marks in dealing with inflation. The 14-year-high inflation rate is driven largely by the spiraling costs of food and non-alcoholic beverages.
And the food component refers mostly to agricultural products: meats, dairy, wheat flour and consequently breads and noodles, sugar and therefore sweetened beverages and confectionery, and yes, onions.
People are greeting the new year with tears in their eyes, for being forced to pay exorbitant amounts just to make their holiday meals flavorful.
Before folks remember that the official at the DA’s helm also happens to be the President, BBM might want to speed up his timetable for turning over the DA portfolio to someone who can devote attention full-time to the many serious problems besetting the sector.
Fixing agriculture has to be an urgent priority in this new year.
* * *
High food prices dominated the bad news in the first six months of Marcos 2.0. Never mind the shortage of large potatoes for French fries, which aren’t a Pinoy staple. High flour prices, which meant more expensive pandesal, Pinoy “tasty” and instant noodles, could also be blamed on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Chicken Sad” or the shortage of plump broilers – attributed to a shortage of the growers’ preferred local variety of yellow field corn – could not be blamed entirely on external factors. But the problem could still be attributed to weaknesses inherited by the new administration.
The brunt of the blame for the sugar fiasco, on the other hand, is going to the current leadership. The mess is also believed to have triggered the first major rupture among the power blocs around BBM. Less than three months into his administration, Marcos had jettisoned his first “little president.”
From that messy power play that entangled the sugar industry, to the current onion fiasco, the government has looked like it’s running around like a headless chicken. As the year changes, the impression persists.
* * *
Local agricultural producers have contrasting explanations for the onion problem.
One group says the country traditionally imports red and yellow or white onions in the lean months before the harvest, to stabilize supply and prices.
This time, however, the DA announced that there would be no importation as the harvest is starting. But producers say the harvest is not until February-March.
Other agricultural producers, on the other hand, say there is sufficient local onion supply, and some greedy folks are simply making a killing by manipulating supply and prices.
Unfortunately for us, in the absence of an accurate inventory of agricultural output whether projected or actual, the government seems clueless about the volume of domestic production even for staples such as rice and sugar.
Decisions on importation are then governed by guesswork, and by persons or groups wielding the strongest clout in the DA and Malacañang.
BBM, in taking on the DA portfolio, had painted it as a move to show his appreciation of the gravity of the problems bedeviling agriculture. Plus he probably wanted to prove that rice at P20 a kilo could go beyond an election campaign “aspiration.”
That campaign promise, however, is proving to be as unattainable as the other memorable campaign vow to eradicate the drug problem in six months.
After his first six months, BBM should realize the magnitude of the challenge and assign a permanent secretary of agriculture. He can still occasionally micromanage the sector, but he needs an expert who can give the complex problems the full attention that they deserve.
Dole-outs and subsidies through twice-a-month limited Kadiwa outlets are mere palliatives. They also compete for public funds that are already stretched thin for the provision of other free state services, including health care and education all the way to college.
Food sufficiency is attained not by dole-outs but through higher domestic output.
He’s only halfway through his first year, and all surveys show that BBM still enjoys enormous popularity and political capital to get things done. But food is a gut issue, and its lack or inaccessibility due to steep prices can erode that popularity so early in his term.
The New Year memes indicate the public mood. Pinoys rang out 2022 with this message: this is the way the year ends… with one medium-sized red onion priced at P43.