Cooking test

Many of us living from paycheck to paycheck feel the price of basic goods climbing steadily.

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

While holiday expenses often pile on emotional and financial stress, the P500 budget estimates released by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for Noche Buena struck a raw nerve. Cashing in on the obvious knee-jerk reaction of harried people trying to make both ends meet, hardcore politicians fanned public sentiment with disinformation.

Sadly for DTI Secretary Cristina Roque, she became the “feast,” skewered by anti-administration politicians. Roque was condemned for the government's failure to uplift the lives of the Filipinos who are supposedly being “limited” to a measly P500 budget for their family dinner get-together on Christmas Eve.

The DTI secretary’s words appeared to shrink the aspirations of millions. It was being made to appear to imply P500 is all the poor Filipino families could afford or should be satisfied with amid the harsh realities of inflation and economic hardship.

On the surface, claiming that P500 can cover Christmas Eve dinner seems insensitive to the prevailing outrage over reported misspending of government budget. In particular, this added to the public furor over reported “ghost” and other anomalous flood control projects found in congressional insertions in the annual budgets of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

But the rush to condemn the P500 Noche Buena price estimates of the DTI missed its crucial context. The P500 figure was not in anyway an imposition. But such is how bitter critics of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) would like the public to believe.