Who is to Blame for the Rice Shortage in the Philippines

Who is to blame for the rice shortage in the Philippines?

the Traders?
the Government?

Pointing of fingers to who is to blame for this problem continues. The rice traders accuses the government for harassment. Raids conducted on their warehouses seems to b a form of harassment according to some rice millers. It is of course normal for this businessmen to store stocks of palay or rice for the lean season. But how can we determine if what they are doing is not a form of rice hoarding? What is the guideline of our government agencies especially the NFA and DA in determining that a particualr trader is committing an illegal act? If they will prevent these traders to at least maintain an inventory for the lean season, we will be suffering a bigger problem. There will be scarcity of this item comes the lean season.

As a result of this fear by rice traders that they will be accused of hoarding, some already stop buying palay from the farmers just like what happened in Nueva Ecija and other neighboring provinces. There are some farmers who are already complaining that their produce are already affected because some rice traders would not buy their harvest. Again who is the losser in this situation. The Poor farmers, the masa.

I hope the government can think of a better solution to solve this crisis. Most of our government official would always assure the public that the price of rice would become stable. But when?

Still the government should be blamed for this rice shortage in our country. It should not be the traders, it should not be the farmers and it should be the people who are relying on this commodity as their staple food.