section D world
filipino globe
global news & views
June 2008
13
NEWSBITES
Rice crops up in ‘balik’ boxes
MERRY WIDOW
A rich 80-year-old Indian
widow has spent thousands of
dollars on a feast for 100,000
As prices soar and shortage continues,
people in the hope it would
please the gods and open the
overseas Pinoys jump in to fill the void
doors of heaven for her, local
officials said.
People from surrounding
villages and towns were fed
Rice is cropping up in unlikely plac-
There’s room for lunch over two consecutive
es as rising prices and a shortage at
days by Phuljharia Kunwar,
home prompt enterprising Filipinos to more inside, so
who lives in the eastern state
fill the void.
Joven Macang is one of them.
this time, we are
of Bihar and has no family
or relatives. Kunwar spent
The Los Angeles-based Macang
showed up at Manila Oriental, a
filling it with rice
US$37,500 on the feast. Local
officials said she spent lavishly
grocery that doubles as an agent for
because she had no one to
JOVEN MACANG
Filipino shipping companies. She had
bequeath her property.
US-based Pinay
two hefty boxes destined for relatives
“She told us she could now
in the Philippines. Inside: four 4kg
begin her final journey and
Filipinos in the Washington region
bags of Japanese rice, bought at a Ko-
her soul could rest in peace in
say the unthinkable has become fairly
rean supermarket and about to make a
heaven,” an official said.
common in recent months: Migrants
trip back to Asia.
are stuffing sacks of rice into balik-
SUDOKU JURY
They’re really short of rice over
bayan boxes shipping them to the
A judge aborted a drug
there,” said Macang, 59, who works
Philippines.
conspiracy trial after some
as a nanny. “My brother said the
Typically packed with US products, jurors were found to have
[price of] rice is going up. So what I
these boxes are shipped for a flat rate been playing the puzzle game
did, I said, ‘All right, I’ll look for rice
of about US$100 no matter what’s Sudoku while evidence was
that is cheaper over here.”
stuffed inside.
being given.
As the United Nations met in Rome
“There’s usually room for more in-
Sydney District Court Judge
last week to discuss shortages and
side, so this time, we are filling it with
Peter Zahra ended the trial
high prices of food and international
rice,” Macang said.
for two men facing drug
charities scramble to help the nations
From being a major rice producing
conspiracy charges.
hardest-hit by the global food crisis,
country, the Philippines has become
The judge was alerted after
some immigrants in the United States
the world’s largest importer of the
it was observed the jurors
are providing their own version of
were writing vertically, rather
staple. Global climatic changes, years
food aid. They are paying to have
than horizontally. It had been
of agricultural mismanagement and
provisions delivered to relatives at
assumed they were taking
unrelenting development are being
home.
notes.
blamed for the situation. Door-to-door cargo from OFWs is now likely to include bags of rice.
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