By DANNY O SAGUN

PANGASINAN is at its merriest mood these days with all the scheduled festivities in almost every corner of the province.

The people of amputi layag in San Carlos City have their Mango and Bamboo festival. Mapandan has its Pandan festival and Calasiao its Puto festival. Dagupan City, nothwithstanding the change in administration, is living up to its claim as the ‘Bangus Capital of the World’ by having a three-week long Bangus Festival that started in April 16 and will culminate on May 4.

The provincial administration too continued the long tradition of holding Pistay Dayat (sea festival) not only on May 1 but for a good 10 days starting April 24.

These festivals, aside from town fiestas and Mayflower festivals, only confirm the fact that Filipinos have time for merriment in spite of their busy lives and their struggle day in day out just to make both ends meet.

But the question that comes to mind is whether expenses for such extravagant affairs can be justified considering our present economic situation. How much money is spent for the various festivals is really mind staggering. We just wonder how many young kids, indigent families, jobless, etc. would have been helped if the money spent was used for programs or projects for them.

Lest we be misunderstood and we do not play KJ here, we agree that crowd-drawing activities perk up business in the concerned area. Here in Dagupan, business here would have become much more alive even during this time. Same is true with other areas where festivals are also held.

Our only concern is whether having huge expenditures in time of crisis is acceptable and bothers no conscience at all.
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Is there really a crisis as far as rice supply in the country is concerned?

Farmers we talked to this weekend did not believe so apparently due to a bumper harvest they had for the main and second croppings. Pangasinan was spared of big typhoons last year.

Rains just came in time August last year when the dry spell was about to wreck havoc on our farmlands.

The farmers thought the crisis is just artificial and the handiwork of unscrupulous traders whose warehouses were noted to be brimming with rice stocks when law enforcement agencies raided them.

But non-farmers who buy their daily rice needs from the public markets see the situation otherwise. For them, it is not just a matter of tight supply or a simple case of supply versus demand.

It is really very difficult to explain to the masses how and why this has happened to us — a well-known rice producing
country –when several years back we were self-sufficient in rice production and even an exporter earlier.

Everyone hates to see those long queues of people including children and elderly buying a kilo or two of NFA subsidized rice. If only our leaders could adopt a system that does away with scenes like those shown on television which only indicate there is really a rice crisis.