When a dinner becomes a crime

There was a crime story long ago which not only wrung hearts of bloody tears, it squeezed a vile of contempt against what we thought then was an abusive, insensitive government, when a man was arrested for stealing the neighbor’s steaming pot of rice, so he could have something to feed his family which for days had not had meal—no matter how indecent—that even a stolen cauldron of rice would not only have made a decent fare but some days' survival for his wife and kids.
What the late Alex Fernando thought then was a novelty report had in fact become an example piece in basic news writing for the added dramatic twist to what was ordinarily a report about a simple case of theft, which on bland, dry days only fills space in a newspaper’s metro or police section, unless some interesting event comes along and it does not get stolen by the front page.
Like when a head of the family spiked what became his family’s last dinner with a stick of watusi, killing his wife, children and himself. It was abject poverty which forced him to commit suicide, because he could no longer bear it and the hunger it forced on his family, because there was no opportunity for him to earn decently, or maybe even more simply, because there was nothing coming for him and his family however hard they tried.
He had provided the template for other family suicides that followed, simply because a stick of watusi is more affordable and accessible than the best poison there is. Some suicides, however, were not as successful as the first, failures which left a deep sense of guilt, and to others regret, while they also make us ponder on the painful truth that we could not complain against our inadequacies, or about the inequalities we see, as there are still those living in the extreme abyss, suffering hell until a stick of watusi puts an end to their sufferings.
Hunger is the bastard son of poverty. Before Gloria Macapagal Arroyo read what should be her last State of the Nation Address last month, where the only gloom come from those who criticize her leadership, while the rest were just as healthy as her cute cheeks, a survey claimed two in every five Filipinos have suffered involuntary hunger in recent months.
Gloria’s numbers which littered her speech to strengthen her claims of an economically robust Philippines under her watch, all the already extended nine years of it, could not belie how poverty and hunger have spread since she took power in 2001.
Her claimed growth has not trickled down to reach those who should have been its intended recipients, the poor masses who are still struggling to make ends meet. When their everyday fare still includes thoughts on how to provide their children with food, education and jeepney fare, while in the back of their minds are additional concerns on where they would squeeze their next budget for their medicine, let alone doctors fees, how could Gloria claim growth?
Yet just days after Gloria’s painting of a rosy picture for all of us to believe, she lived the lie. When the world, even superpower America, is down on its knees and reeling from the effects of recession, there was Gloria sleeping in comfort in Waldorf Astoria, and partaking in a nearly P1 million dinner (given, we were told, in honor of the first couple celebrating their wedding anniversary) at the very ritzy Le Cirque, earning contempt even from Americans who saw them partying just as the nation was mourning, as ordered by Gloria herself, in honor of a dead former president who is well-loved for her honesty and dignity, traits missing in Gloria’s political dictionary.
It was good bed, good food and good wine, all served in celebratory mood for what Gloria thought was a successful visit to Barrack Obama. She was wrong.
She was noticed—all her excesses and abuses and insensitivity. Bless the souls of those who died—or killed themselves— in hunger, they must be turning in their graves now, waiting for vengeance when they could get it.
And for us living, we still wonder whether a caviar is best served hot or cold. Because we will never know in our lives how caviar tastes or looks like. We are familiar only with the steaming white rice, which used to come in endless servings in our tables, but which we could hardly afford now.
Now, I wonder which is the worst criminal: the man who stole the pot of rice, the man who forced family suicide because they could no longer bear poverty and hunger, or the couple who…? Nevermind!