The municipality of Baao in the province of Camarines Sur celebrated its 428th Founding Anniversary through the Kamuy-An Festival that started August 9 and lasted August 25. It covered two weeks of fancy display of fun, merry-making, competitions and parties - involving pageants, trade fairs, culinary services, sports and musical performances, see #MuyamuyaPaMore.
The festival is broad stroke to project Baao as a potential tourist destination. The event is celebrated amidst the backdrop of rising inflation rate, spiking cost of basic commodities and political positioning.
Rising inflation rate.The Bicol Region registered a record high inflation rate at 7.4% way above the national inflation rate of 5.7%. The projection is that inflation may continue to rise up to 6% in the 4th quarter of the year until the first quarter of next year. It means less goods in the basket.... therefore less food in the table, less allowances for school children and further tightening of family budget.
Baao, a land of rice and palm trees, is an agricultural community with around 80% of its population engaged into agriculture. The agriculture sector is the poorest group in the Philippines. The soaring inflation is surely taking its toll among the farmers and their families.
Rising Cost of Basic Commodities. Baao is a major rice producing municipality in Camarines Sur. However, market price of rice is relatively the same as that in Metro Manila. One will wonder where the local rice production goes. The other puzzling issue is, while prices of milled rice spiked by leaps and bounce, prices of palay at farm gate level increased by just half a step. If there is a group who profited well in this situation definitely it is not the lowly farmers. The local/provincial government unit needs to step into this concern to regulate at the immediate pricing of commercial rice. We may end up one day in the same dilemma being experienced by Zamboanga City.
Political Positioning. Election fever is starting to heat up in Baao. The Kamuy-An Festival is suppose to showcase the unity and oneness of the local people. However, it only exposed "divides" among the Baaoenos with one group trying to inch its way into the limelight... organizing its own separate events in ...... presumably under the hashtag "pagbabago"... Do I see something new!!!
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