When welcoming a new year, we always hope that new positives shall come and support us throughout the coming year, but for the majority of Indonesians living in poverty, the same cannot be said.
With the Indonesian political sphere being shaken quite recently by the Gayus H. Tambunan corruption case, bigger and more important issues such as the expected rise in food prices have gone unnoticed. The United Nations expects food prices to soar even more in 2011 from a previous 26 percent rise in 2010.
Although we would assume that the countries that will be mostly hit with the rising prices are the ones that are mainly focused on non-agricultural sectors, this is rather misleading.
Less fortunate people from industrializing and industrialized countries will experience even more hardship and challenges in the year as oil prices have steadily increased recently, extreme weather patterns continue, and the price of basic needs such as food are expected to increase as well.
We shouldn’t have to look far for examples because we can already predict what will happen to the poor people of our country. The less fortunate Indonesians consider themselves lucky if they can find things to sell from collecting garbage and if they can eat at least once a day. That in itself is a sad story but what makes it even worse is that little attention has been taken in order to help these people.
The funny thing about Indonesians and our government officials is that we don’t know what our priorities are. When it is obvious that the majority of people need more attention from the government, one of our ministers decides to create a big spectacle about Research In Motion (RIM) and pornography with very little foundation supporting his accusations aimed at RIM.
The clear evidence that the lives of the poor will be in even more jeopardy was masked for several weeks by the story of Gayus who embezzled enough money to keep poor Indonesians away from poverty. The odd part about such cases is how a person who stole so much money could be sent to prison for only seven years; which brings into question the priorities of our government and judicial system.
I can’t help but feel compassion toward the less fortunate people of Indonesia because seemingly it is almost like no one really cares about them, not even the people who are responsible for maintaining the welfare and security of the public people (also known as the government).
The government surely shall continue to reassure us on the topic of securing stable food prices as mentioned in the article “President issues directives to ensure food supplies” (The Jakarta Post, Jan. 21), but it would be rather erroneous of us to have complete trust in them at the same time. If the directives set up by the President fail and the rise in food prices continue and we see prices of our staple food, rice, increase drastically, what actions will the government take? One can only assume that they will tell us Indonesians to start eating less rice like in the past and switch to other foods such as cassava or potatoes.
The question remains; when will the government start taking serious measures to deal with the expected spike in food prices?
Cantika Paramitha R
Bandung
