MEDIUM RARE

According to the experts – economists, data gatherers, BSP – inflation last month ranged between 8.5 and 9.3 percent. I don’t buy their expertise. Twice in the last five or six weeks I’ve had to pay 30 percent more for our food costs, each time suffering the embarrassment of forcing Cook to dig into her purse to advance the shortfall at the “palengke.”  What if her wallet had not been loaded? Whether it’s 8.something or 9, it doesn’t matter all that much to consumers because we buy something to fulfil a need, not to be guided by inflation or deflation or consternation. Only pencil pushers and numbers watchers bother to take their analyses seriously, after which they’ll keep their fingers crossed, hoping the facts will bear out their figures. But when they predict a 4 percent inflation coming up in October, what fairy tale are they spinning? Shopping at the mall can be just as iffy. When I found a nice pair of shorts for my son, the price tag read ₱549. I dug to the bottom of the pile for more of the same, only to find more shorts in exactly the same style and color, but priced at ₱749. I asked the clerk at the pay counter to explain the disparity and she said simply, “The 549 you got is the last of its batch, all the rest are fresh arrivals.” In other words, between the old and the new merchandise was a price difference of ₱200. (Let NEDA calculate the rate of inflation right there.) What made our usually cheerful Cook smile after her last trip to the market was the abundant supply of singkamas – fresh, crunchy, juicy, perfect for summer, and cheap, at ₱25 a kilo (four pieces!). She also noted that onions are now down to ₱110, whereas in the season of Lent, seafood is “as valuable as gold!” On the other hand, at the rate the high cost of dining out threatens to deflate our appetites, we can only excuse restaurant owners for switching to smaller plates and shallow bowls and cups. In a perverse way, may a dainty way of feasting teach us to be conscious about wasting food amid a supply shortage.