Geared to increase the country’s rice production, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has issued guidelines to distribute hybrid rice seeds to offset rising costs of inputs (fertilizer) and irrigation issues. This was included in the memorandum signed by Leocadio Sebastian, undersecretary for rice industry development consonant with the provision of the National Rice Program (NRP).

The Memo emphasizes the role of the NRP distribution program to a selective location and climate suitability nationwide. Ultimately, the same Memo aims to improve the productivity and income of rice farmers through an expanded distribution and utilization of certified hybrid rice seeds.

To achieve this, it should see t the adoption of hybrid rice seeds up to 40 percent and a production yield level up to 6 tons per hectare in the wet season and up to 8 ton/hectare in the dry season in target areas by year 2028.

In April 2023, it was announced by the DA that it was targeting a 100 percent rice self sufficiency by 2027 through the Masagana Rice Program 2023-2028. This supports President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos, Jr., wish to achieve close to self-sufficiency by 2025.

MY COMMENT:
The country’s rice production program faces multifarious hurdles, both man-made and nature-instigated. Definitely, the impending El Niño phenomenon Is an obstacle to hurdle by the rice farmers. The government will have to craft a proactive stance to confront the obstacles to increasing rice production to feed its growing population amid increasing incidence of poverty level.
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THAT question Christ asked his disciples about who did people say he, as the Son of Man, was should also be addressed to each one of us. And we should just try our best to give the right answer like what St. Peter did. (cfr. Mt 16,13-20)

And the simple reason is because knowing correctly who Christ is would lead us to know ourselves properly, since Christ is the pattern of our humanity and the savior of our humanity that is damaged by sin.

Let us always remember that Christ, being the Son of God, is the perfect image and likeness of God himself. And since we have been created in God’s image and likeness, we can truly say that we are meant to be like Christ to achieve what God wants us to be—his image and likeness, his adopted children, meant to share in his divine life and nature.
We have to be wary of our tendency to attain our self-knowledge based only on what we see and feel, on how certain worldly ideologies define us, or worse, on certain passing trends and fashions that can be prevailing at a given period of time and place.

We truly need to know Christ to know ourselves properly, and we have to do everything to attain that knowledge by every means possible—by reading and meditating on the life of Christ as recorded in the gospels, by living the clearly Christian charisms and spiritualities now available in the Church, by imitating the lives of saints who have been faithful to Christ all the way to the end, etc.

Again, Christ as the Son of God is the pattern of our humanity. If we want to know who we really are, how we ought to be, all we have to do is to look at Christ and try our best, with God’s grace, to identify ourselves with him.

More than that, because of our sin that defaced the original state in which we, in Adam and Eve, were created, Christ is the Son of God who became man to save us. The immediate conclusion we can derive from this truth of our faith is that for us to know how to handle our sinfulness, again all we have to do is to look at Christ and try our best, with God’s grace, to identify ourselves with him. He offers us the “the way, the truth and the life.”

That identification with Christ as our Redeemer cannot but involve the acceptance of the cross through which our salvation is achieved. We have to know therefore the full meaning of the cross in our life, and embrace and die on it the way Christ embraced and died on it.
This is what is meant to be ‘alter Christus,’ an ideal that can be reached because insofar as God is concerned, everything is already given for us to be able to be so. Things now just depend on us on whether we would like to be ‘alter Christus’ or not.

All the means are made available. We have the sources of divine revelation that show us the truth about ourselves. We have the word of God. We have the Church and the sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist.

We just have to make the necessary adjustments in the way we think, in the way we identify ourselves. It would not be presumptuous, even given our limitations and woundedness, to start and keep thinking that “I am another Christ, ‘alter Christus.’” We just have to try our best, with God’s grace to think and act like Christ!

A clear afterthought was the delayed pronouncement issued by the president by stating what his supporters and believers want to hear “I stand united with the Filipinos worldwide the Ninoy Aquino Day” which marked the 40th of that “murder of the century” that fell Ninoy on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. Such statement was aimed at earning praises from the duped and gullible lot that he is truly for unity. It was a claptrap that caught the nod of those who believe in his oxymoronic statements that lure many people to clap at every declaration pushing for unity.

But the real score is in his actions that appear diametrically opposed to his statements. Claiming to be united with the Filipinos worldwide is nonsense humbugging as he need not look beyond the neighborhood to show proof of his statements. The momentous event that celebrated the death of Ninoy was held in Santo Domingo Parish Church along Quezon Avenue in Quezon City. It was the same hallowed place where Ninoy’s wake was held, allowing throngs of Filipinos queueing day and night to give their last respects and final glimpse of the bloodied face of their martyr and hero.

The longing of the churchgoers that swelled every minute to fill the Santo Domingo Parish Church hours before the 10:00 o’clock requiem mass officiated by His Most Reverend Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas, D.D., Bishop of Dagupan and concelebrated by over ten Archbishops and Bishops and about fifty monsignors and priests. The celebration marking the 40th death anniversary of Ninoy’s death was the apt place to show the unity being brandished by the president in his public statements. His mere presence joining the Filipinos in Santo Domingo Parish Church could have proved his sincerity, else, his true self as a mere politician of mere pretenses.

It is hard to blame the Filipinos who keep doubting every statement that appears nothing but to satiate the people of whatever they want to hear. Such statements are taken hook, line and sinker by the gullible lot who follow blindly without making any effort to verify the facts behind every statement. Worse, such unverified statements are easily and irresponsibly spread on all platforms, chiefly on social media. The spread of unverified tales creates a chain of false information worldwide.

It is high time for Filipinos to be responsible in taking tales that are intended merely to earn media mileage and confuse the public of the real story behind every politically adulterated statement. The real measure of what is factual truth is not in the speaking but in the doing with consistency of what is said. The issuance of motherhood statements that are clearly diametrically opposed to the facts and nothing by empty statements motivated by a personality and character that is merely humbugging.
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