Scorched earth. Everyone who reads the news knows that as early as January, farmers in drought-stricken areas of Mindanao, have been fleeing to the cities and neighboring provinces to escape hunger.

In the capital of Manila, we take our food supply for granted. Few of us appreciate the grave injustice that daily stalk the producers of the food that grace our tables. Trapped in debt, with little by way of government aid, and already among the poorest of the poor, farmers and their families often go under from the onslaught of a single natural disaster.

Government officials themselves have announced the need to import rice and the international aid agency Oxfam said in some areas drought has destroyed 100% of rice crops. National dailies have been full of photos of parched earth and people in desperate straits.

The government approved the release of P238 million in calamity funds for Cotabato, one of the most badly hit areas. It promised support for farmers in January.

“We waited three long months, bearing the unbearable heat and deep hunger,” said Pedro Arnado of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas Cotabato chapter.

Three months is a long time for hungry people. This week, thousands of farmers and their supporters said, enough. They descended on the main highway of Cotabato to get attention to their plight.

They demanded 15,000 sacks of rice to tide them over until the next harvest season and seedlings and other agricultural inputs once the rain comes.

At NFA prices, the rice they need would amount to P22.5 million. That’s not 10 percent of the calamity fund. And that life-saving rice is the value of just 37.5 15-second ads of candidates who’ve already spent billions of pesos for the May elections.

As if that kind of neglect isn’t obscene enough, the government told them to hand over their children – as if it had paid attention to these kids prior to the protests.

Then Cotabato Governor Emmylou Talino-Mendoza demanded they all go home where local government units would give them aid – three kilos of rice per quarter.

Three kilos of rice will feed a family of four or five for three days. The governor probably spends for a sack of rice daily or every few days to feed campaign staff and hangers on.

And then the ultimatum came. Disperse or else.

People facing death from hunger will stand firm. When farmers did just that, cops trained water cannons on them. When that didn’t work, they waded into the protest, flailing their batons.

Truncheons will usually force back a march several meters. But these are Mindanao farmers. The alternative to assertion was hunger and death. And so they resisted and fought back.

And the government forces opened fire. At least two cops were injured.

This is the Philippines, where candidates kowtow to all the fat cats in town, jueteng lords included, and take private planes to crisscross the archipelago. This is the Philippines, where casino junket operators breezily discuss “regular” cases of gamblers losing as much as half a billion pesos.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country struggles with less than US$3000 annual per capita income, according to the World Bank. This is the Philippines, where poverty stalks more than a quarter of the country’s 100-million population; average monthly income is less than $200 in this sector. This is the Philippines, where wealth disparity is among the most pronounced in Asia, with 16% of the population getting 60% of the gross domestic product of the local economic income, with 84% scrambling for the balance.

This is the Philippines, where hungry farmers, demanding their due, are fed bullets. Les Miz has nothing to our realities.