Our cross to bear

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asked Filipinos on Palm Sunday to embrace sacrifice in the spirit of the Lenten season. His plea would have landed better on the ears of Filipinos if they had not been doing exactly that for years.

Take rice. How can the poor forget the President’s promise of P20 per kilo at every corner when they are reminded of it every time their stomach growls?

There is no need for a Palace press briefing presided over by Claire Castro to understand the big disappointment, with rice selling at P45, P50 or P60 a kilo. The numbers explain themselves.

So households adjust. They always do. Smaller portions, cheaper options, fewer choices. No one calls it sacrifice anymore, but “resilience,” that overused catch-all. It is how we get by or, at least, try to.

Inflation is supposed to be under control after peaking at 8.7 percent in early 2023, then easing to something more presentable — three, maybe four percent. That is what gets reported.

But food did not follow the script, as it went past 10 percent. Rice alone spiked over 20 percent at one point. And when those numbers settled, prices did not go back to where they started. They stayed up.

Then there is poverty, which depends on which version you prefer. Officially, around 15.5 percent. Manageable, on paper. Then surveys come in and 63 percent of Filipinos say they feel poor. Both figures are real. Only one gets talked about over dinner.

Growth looks fine too, if you read it the way it is presented. Seven-point-six percent in 2022. Then 5.6. Then around 5.5 again. Still growing. Still respectable. Also still below the government’s 6 to 7-percent target.

Still, it is growth that looks good in presentations but is meaningless in households.

Then, fuel prices do not need interpretation amid the Middle East war. P100-plus for diesel per liter, almost as much for gasoline. You see the unending price surges every time you stop at a pump.

And how does the government respond? With subsidies trumpeted in press releases, temporary relief that helps until the next increase comes along. It has become a pattern now. Prices move. Assistance follows. Then prices move again.

Nothing underneath changes. The country still imports rice. Farmers still deal with the same constraints — cost, weather, lack of access to agricultural supplies, much more of subsidies for fertilizer and seeds.

The system keeps moving in the same direction, just a little more expensive each year.

Then you hear the Pope, speaking in Monaco, warning about the widening gap — no, a chasm he called it — between the rich and the poor. It sounded like he was talking about another place until you realize you did not need to hear about Monaco.

You just need to look around the slums of Manila and the dirt-poor villages in the Philippine countryside.

Even as Filipinos tighten their belts, allegations of corruption persist, with the reports of questionable flood control projects worth billions still raising concerns over the misuse of public funds. At a time of hardship, such controversies deepen public distrust and sharpen the sense that the sacrifice is not equally shared.

It looks distant — 2028 does — if you are counting elections; not if you are counting expenses. That clock runs faster.

Sacrifice, as a message, assumes people are about to begin doing that. But many Filipinos never stopped.