Ang sibuyas,

SOMETIME ago, a TV station had a vegetable consciousness segment where young boys and girls recited verses titled “Ang (name of vegetable) Bow!

So there was “Ang sitaw, bow!” and “Ang pechay, bow.”

But I do not recall a segment where the merits of onions were featured.

Now, the DA, the BoC, the farming sector, the “international traders,” otherwise known as smugglers, and, worse of all, the hard-hit consumers, have altogether elevated the ordinary “sibuyas” into the pantheon of national, even international, fame or notoriety.

Sibuyas, whether red or white, small or large, local or imported, has bedeviled our agriculture officials like never before.

And the saga of the sibuyas continues, seemingly without an end.

DA spokespersons touted the soon-tobe-released SRP on onions, or suggested retail price, a useless optical contraption designed to make our consumer think that government can “order” market forces to behave, just like King Canute tried ordering the waves to stop.

And then, just as soon as the spokespersons’ saliva had dried (they are in denial mode, looking for culprits who leaked), their quasi-boss, the primus inter pares among all the undersecretaries of the spooked DA, refused to sign the memorandum mandating the SRP.

Having been in the department for as long as baby boomers can remember, maybe, just maybe, the senior undersecretary knew all along that the SRP was just a tool for optics.