I must protest this pasquinade against the First Couple (if that was the intention), who, after all, are neither royalty nor that insensitive to the plight of the majority. In the first place, the French on the eve of the French Revolution were unused to cakes, but our own poor people certainly are familiar with rice and noodles, as they are the cheapest (comparatively) commodities around. There is no parallel between Marie Antoinette literally losing her head and others symbolically losing theirs.

But, then, you can’t blame the editorial cartoonist as he is just reacting to what Malacañang has been saying, advertently or otherwise. When GMA announced the 35-billion peso pump-priming of the economy, why did her drumbeaters, speechwriters, apologists, whatever, have to add that part of the moneys will go for free rice and noodles for the poor?

Now, there’s a problem, apart from the fact that the poor aren’t starved for rice and noodles; what they want is what goes with them, such as cooking oil, viands, transport money, and the like.

The real problem, according to GMA’s chief economist, NEDA Director-General Augusto Santos, is that the poor cannot be located. (All along, one thought that it’s government officials who could not be located when you needed them, but that’s beside the point). In short, government statistics show incidence of poverty but not the names and addresses of the poor, for they are "mobile people," according to Santos. (Maybe they are "mobile" because they are NPA, no permanent address.)

This is a good excuse for the usual suspects to say, "What poor are critics complaining about?" If the NEDA chief cannot even find them so they can get the free rice and noodles they don’t need, what gives them the idea that poor people even exist?"