Dumaguete City | The Broken Rice

Dumaguete City | The Broken Rice

The City of Dumaguete is giving rice assistance to its citizens. They are handing over 10-kg of rice as part of their assistance during this pandemic. 

We are very much thankful because the government took notice of the challenges we are facing, and is taking action to alleviate the struggles of the people.

But, though I am thankful, I noticed something irregular with the rice.

In the sack of rice,  the words “long grain” is written. From what I know, long-grain means well-milled rice and of high quality. I am not “picky” in terms of what rice to eat. In life, I have no problems eating inside “carinderias”. From the “carinderias” of Carbon, Ormoc and Dumaguete. This also gives me enough experience to know what good bad rice is.

When we opened the rice, we noticed that the grains were not long, as it was actually small in length, or in common terms “broken”. It looked like broken rice. And we cooked it, it felt and tasted like broken rice.

And there is no problem with broken rice. It’s the most affordable type of rice out there, and you can definitely eat it, and this is what some “carinderias” used to make their meals affordable.

But what I am mostly concerned about is, I do hope that no one benefited from overpricing. Broken rice is a lot cheaper than long-grain well-milled rice. 

This is the Philippines, and corruption is really prevalent. I do hope what I experienced was an isolated mistake, and not a deliberate tactic to take advantage of the pandemic.

If this article is ever read by one of the Dumaguete City officials distributing rice aids, kindly investigate this matter and coordinate with your Suppliers. 

If the rice was priced as broken rice and Supplied to the city, then that would be no problem. 

But, if the rice declared was long grain well-milled, but the supplied was “Broken Rice”, then that would be a shameful story to everyone involved in this corruption.