Blood Sweat and Tears

Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Every peel of its skin costs a million and every slice of its layer makes you cry. Is it
tears of joy or tears of blood?
There are way more important problems in the Philippines that the government should
be solving, but due to the people’s demand this has been brought to the attention of the
higher, and that is the ridiculously high prices for onions.
Recently on August 2022, Agriculture officials warned lawmakers that the country
would suffer a shortage of garlic and onions, however, it was stated by the Department of
Agriculture that the country would have enough supply of red onions by the end of 2022.
Months have passed until December according to Manila Times, the price for onion
has reached 250/kilo with the Holidays coming, many consumers are concerned because
when there is a holiday, there is a celebration, and what is a celebration without a feast?
As December comes, my family and I started shopping for things needed for the feast
that we are preparing for Christmas. They were shocked to see the prices for onions and were
hesitant to buy them because the budget is only limited. We saw a lot of people having no
choice but to buy because missing an ingredient does not result in good quality and the family
deserves the best food served on Christmas Eve. We tried going from stall to stall expecting
to find a much lower price but the prices only increases each time.
The Department of Agriculture suspected and believes that a criminal syndicate

hoarded the onion supply but there is no record or proof of it, thus an investigation is
underway.
Another reason for this is the Philippines’ inflation rate. In December 2022, the
Philippines reached 8.1% inflation and onion makes up about 0.3%. This is the result of
the government’s ignorance of inflation if they made an action to resolve this there could
have been a high chance of these food price issues not happening.
If only people have the power to make a decision for their country, someone can make
a change. But since we are not given a chance to express our ideas, we are forced to sit and
suffer until the government initiates an action. All we can do is hope for the best.
The issue does not stop there because as of January 2023, the onion price has now
reached 600 to 700 PHP/kilo due to its higher demand. Welcoming the New Year as well as
celebrating it calls for supplies. Since a lot of people have cafeterias as their business, it is
easy to assume that the supply is gonna be higher than before.
Aling Erlinda is one of the people that was interviewed by the 24 Oras news TV.
Filipino loves the sisig cuisine and its main ingredient is onion. However, due to the high
prices, Aling Erlinda decided to temporarily remove sisig from their menu, it is still available
but for special orders only but the ingredients are still limited and quoted as “sometimes, we
do not put onions because we have no choice, therefore, we try to make it as flavorful as
we can”.
On the other hand, some cafeterias still use onions but the cuisine’s price such as sisig
is now higher than before. It is because this cuisine has 30% onion so to cope with the
expenses, the higher prices.
Department of Agriculture’s solution to this is importing from different countries. It

was said a “temporary solution” but the people demand not a temporary but permanent
solution because they are still not sure how long this problem is gonna last. Not only that, this
will affect the farmers that are starting and already started. With the government importing
goods from other countries, this will result in our farmers not having income or will be seen
as irrelevant.
Department of Agriculture still recommended importing 22,000 metric tons of

onions as the answer to lowering its price and because of the ongoing rainy weather, a lot of
crops have been flooded and destroyed which leaves the people no choice. Approximately
200 hectares of crops from Nueva Ecija had been destroyed and flooded by the rain. This
will result in furthermore supply problems and until now, we still have not solved this issue
nor at least reduced it.
This would have never happened if they solved the main problem in the first place
which is the inflation rate. The inflation rate controls everything and in this situation, I do not
see the government having a solution for this. As a matter of fact, this onion situation is not
even a red alarm issue yet people are already panicked like this. When the time comes and we
faced a more serious problem that can change our country permanently, I wonder how the
government will think of a way to solve it knowing that they could have prevented it by
solving the main problem.
Farmers have put their blood, sweat, and tears into their work but received less than
the bare minimum. In the end, the government still failed to provide peace to their people’s
stomachs, not only that, they are still unsure how to solve a small problem compared to
hundreds of problems they still have not solved. How many sweats are the people willing to
waste? How many tears are they willing to drop, and lastly, how much blood are they willing
to shed just to keep on living? Thinking about it, I am curious to see what the government
will do when the people finally give up on them.

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Blood, Sweat, and Tears

The Department of Agriculture suspected and believes that a criminal syndicate

Department of Agriculture’s solution to this is importing from different countries. It

Department of Agriculture still recommended importing 22,000 metric tons of

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