EAT  HALF-CUP  RICE?  ONLY  IF  ERAP,  FG,  JINGGOY  &  MICKEY  DO SO TOO!
 

MANILA, APRIL 21, 2008 (STAR) By Wilson Lee Flores - A diet that consists predominantly of rice leads to the use of opium, just as a diet that consists predominantly of potatoes leads to the use of liquor. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth — something very difficult for a politician. Or watch your food — just watch it, don’t eat it. — Edward Koch

Good news! Now, we can now help save the world. Wow, that was my childhood dream when I started idolizing Popeye (who by the way, gets his strength from eating spinach, not rice) and Superman. I’m serious. Our strong Republic of the Philippines is now in a position to help save the world by easing the ongoing global food crisis, if all Filipinos just agree to decrease their daily rice intake by 50 percent or half their ordinary consumption. Remember Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap’s half-cup rice suggestion? I think it’s a good idea.

If we eat less rice, we import less rice; voila we ease global food shortage! It’s no joke — except on us and most specially on our many half-wit politicians — that we boast the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Laguna and the 2,000-year-old Banaue Rice Terraces as the “8th Wonder of the World,” but the Philippines is now the world’s No. 1 rice importer! Whoa!

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Arrrgh! I was recently four hours late for a Sunday lunch hosted by ex-President Joseph “Erap” Estrada in his North Green hills house for a dozen foreign media (of course, I’m no foreigner, I’m a natural-born Filipino citizen). I entered as Erap was bidding everyone farewell and giving away CDs of his new song on why planting rice is fun. No more fried rice or lechon, but just a rice song!

Sayang! I missed what I imagine was a delectable lunch and I wasn’t able to spy on Erap’s rice intake, on whether he was following the advice of Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap to cut down his rice intake to only half a cup or not.

Some critics have unfairly criticized Arthur Yap for his half-cup rice idea, but Philippine Star columnist cardiologist Dr. Willie Ong and his wife Dr. Anna Liza Ong recently told this writer that “rice and white bread are counted as bad carbohydrates.”

Drs. Willie and Anna Liza Ong urge the public to lessen their rice intake for better health. We can compensate for that by increasing our intake of vegetables, sweet potatoes, cassava, and fruits. They reminded me that during the dark years of Japanese military occupation, a lot of people subsisted well on kamote and kamoteng kahoy.

A practical option is for more of us to eat healthier rice porridge or lugaw mixed with sweet potatoes or kamote, which my paternal ancestors ages ago ate in rural south China. They called it han-chi be — It was delicious, healthy, light, and economical!

For us of the ethnic Chinese minority in the Philippines, eating less rice would also mean less of such delicious rice-based favorites as kiampeng, cha-peng, kiam-be, ma-chang and tikoy. Thinking about it, I already feel dizzy as a hungry kung fu panda!

Once I asked Landmark Department Store taipan Enrique Cheng about his secret for good health, and he said he asked that question decades ago to then China Bank chairman Dr. Albino SyCip who replied: “Eat less, to eat more.” He meant, eat less every day so you’d end up living a longer, healthier life and thus, actually be able to eat more. Less is truly more!

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I love rice-based delicacies like bibingka, arroz caldo, biko, tupig, sinangag (garlic fried rice, which used to be called morisqueta tostada in Manila’s Chinese eateries in my great-great-great-grandfather’s time under Spanish colonial rule), arroz valenciana, champorado, kutsinta, puto and suman, but here are my proposals on how we can lessen our rice intake:

• Leadership by example. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should invite me and other members of media to randomly check on her Malacañang Palace dinners to prove that she, her spouse Mike Arroyo, and eldest son Congressman Mikey Arroyo are eating only a half-cup of rice daily. From the opposition, Erap should also lead the way.

• Senator Jinggoy Estrada, his pals Senator Bong Revilla and actor Phillip Salvador should eat a half-cup rice, too, to set an example and for their own health. Showbiz stars Marian Rivera, KC Concepcion, Sharon Cuneta, Vilma Santos, Kris Aquino, etc. should do a tri-media blitz on eating less rice and more vegetables.”

• Beauty queens and commercial models can help, too. I recently got an email on the Miss Bikini Contest from the organizers, the Slimmers World chain of gyms. This fitness pageant to be held on May 23 at the PICC, Manila will send the winners to the Miss Bikini International at the Miss Tourism World pageant in China and also to the Miss Bikini World pageant in London. Young contestants can join by calling 536-3333 or going to their gyms. Twenty-six top candidates selected from different cities nationwide will be housed from April 20 to May 25 to undergo a fitness program and nutrition counseling. I suggest only a half-cup of rice per meal be served to all 26 top candidates and that among the duties of the pageant winners is to promote “less rice, more vegetables” as ideal for sexiness.

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Why do we always hear of politicians and other VIPs playing golf in the vast greeneries, instead of rolling up their barong sleeves to plant rice or support those who do?

I indict our politicians for the many years of callous and criminal neglect of the welfare of our rural farmers and their families. For too long now, our politicos have preferred to buy and import rice at high prices — in effect, subsidizing Thai and Vietnamese rural farmers — and then dump the imported rice at subsidized low prices in the Philippine market, therefore depriving our local farmers of decent incomes. No wonder, “planting rice is never fun!” Is it true some of our politicians have enriched themselves via anomalous rice imports, thus impoverishing our rural farmers. How come only the rice hoarders are prosecuted and not any of the more vile political crooks?

As for those politicos linked to unaccounted for and allegedly lost fertilizer funds and swine propagation funds allotted for farmers, shouldn’t they also be hurled into dungeons, jailed for life with iron manacles and served only a quarter of a cup of rice every meal, and only two meals per day? Man does not live by bread or rice alone, but there should be justice, decency, and truth in our society.

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An industrialist shared by e-mail an incident he said he saw at a bar of a five-star hotel in Makati. A Japanese diplomat was said to be lobbying to a top government leader for the speedy approval of the controversial Philippine-Japan free trade agreement. Over beer, the Japanese diplomat said with heavy accent, “We heard you shortage of lies (he meant rice). The politician replied, “To tell you frankly, we will never run out of it.”