President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday night urged Filipinos to boil rice with yam/to eat cheaper cereals to be able  to avoid going hungry as rice prices soared to record levels, reported Agence France - Presse.

“This is once in a millenium global crisis. We have an action plan,” Arroyo said, noting that residents of the central island of Cebu are already using cheap sweet potatoes to help rice stocks go further.

Again, from an AFP report, Arroyo has warned that soaring food energy prices could impact on the national budget this year.

“One of the means that can reduce the burden of the global rise in the price of rice is to have substitutes,” Arroyo told reporters during the visit to Cebu.

Embarrassing as it is,  what the President has said  is very disturbing.  Since January, 2001 when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo assumed Presidency, she should have seen the coming of this rice shortage in the country due to overpopulation. The Philippine population grows  at 2% a year. Estimate census in August, 2007 pegged Philippine population at 88.57 million, up more than 10 million in 2000.

The rice shortage is not due to the global energy crisis as claimed by President Arroyo. It is due to overpopulation as well as the conversion of agricultural lands to subdivisions for housing and commercial establishments. Hence, there are no longer enough lands to produce rice.