Julius Rocas

UP Student's Mom's Letter to
 Roman

Dear Pres­i­dent Roman,

I am a mother of 3 chil­dren. Having a
daugh­ter study­ing in UP Dil­i­man and 2
songs in high school has kept me
wait­ing intently on the devel­op­ments
sur­round­ing the tuition fee hike.

I am most dis­turbed by the last 4
para­graphs of your response to Regent
Sim­bu­lan. In the 3rd from the last
para­graph of your letter, you wrote:

"...It is not clear what basis
Sim­bu­lan is using to claim that
fam­i­lies in the income range cited
(those earn­ing 81,000 - 135,000
annu­ally) are not 'rich enough' (to
pay 300 pesos per unit)..."

Madame Pres­i­dent, it is not clear to
you because you are con­fus­ing your­self
with exces­sively com­pli­cated eco­nomic
con­cepts like "absolute
poverty", "rel­a­tive poverty",
and "offi­cial poverty thresh­old".
Evi­dently, you do not under­stand the
con­cept of "offi­cial poverty
thresh­old" (esti­mated at 74,798 pesos
for 2004 by NSCB, you claim) because
it involves many parameters-​for
exam­ple, you did not spec­ify whether
the esti­mate is for a single, dead
person.

Madame Pres­i­dent, allow me to make
things clear for you, with my simple
house­wife arithmetic.

Is it too much to spend 30 pesos, on
the aver­age, for a meal? Assum­ming we
have 3 meals a day, that amounts to P
90 x 30 = 2,700 a month. For a family
of 5, that adds up to spend­ing P 2,700
x 5 = P 13,500 per month on food alone.

Thus in a year, a frugal family easily
spends P 13,500 x 12 = P 162,000 just
on food. That does not include
lux­u­ries like milk and fruits for me
and my grow­ing chil­dren (I don't want
them to suffer from cal­cium defi­ciency
and end up a hunch­back like you. And
please, dont ask me to breast­feed my
hus­band and ado­les­cent children).

Madame Pres­i­dent, allow me to point
out that P 162,000 (a family of five's
annual expense on food) is way above
the upper limit of income bracket D (P
81,000 - 135,000). Madame, I shall end
my cal­cu­la­tions here as things could
become more com­plex for you to follow
if we include expenses from rent,
util­i­ties, trans­porta­tion, etc.

... I find this newslet­ter so unfair
to mon­keys by call­ing you Emer­chongga.
They should instead call you Emer­dense
 Roman.

Thank you so much for your time.

Mrs. Sandra P. Santos, mother of Ma.
Angelina P. Santos, BS Chem­i­cal
Engineering.

**Please feel free to copy and pass this letter on.