The Office of the Press Secretary in Malacañang Palace will release today the following praise release, oops, press release: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (PGMA) will announce in a press conference Monday that she will instruct the Department of Agriculture to make available immediately to farmers six new rice strains. The new rice breeds are geared to solve the burgeoning food and budgetary-deficit problems of the country. The new rice varieties were developed by the scientists of the newly-created President Arroyo’s Laboratory for Ameliorated Yields (PALAY), in cooperation with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) of Los Baños, Laguna.

The first new rice strain is the so-called “Mañana Rice,” which was developed with the assistance of Spanish botanists. This new rice variety requires slow, overnight cooking. This means that if you cook it in the evening, it will be ready actually for breakfast the next day. The President will answer a question that has been anticipated by the Press Secretary: What good will it bring to the starving masses? Well, the aroma of the rice being slowly cooked that wafts in the shanties or kitchens will reduce, if not eliminate, the pangs of hunger.

The second new rice strain is called the “Memorice,” which is geared to serve as a palliative. It will be a new variety that will sooth hunger, as just a few cooked grains of “Memorice” will remind the person eating it of the good old days during the Marcos Administration when rice was plentiful and the country was self-sufficient in grains and other food staples.

The third new rice variety is named after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of the United States. The PALAY scientists, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have developed the so-called “Condi Rice,” which will become the status symbol of the rich Filipinos, the oligarchs, the presidential cronies and the Filipino-Chinese taipans. It will be expensive because it makes the person eating it feel as brilliant and educated as Secretary Rice. It will be marketed at about 500 times the price of the ordinary “Wag Wag” or “Milagrosa” rice and the price difference will be donated to the people who cannot afford to buy even the often-rotten rice stocks of the National Food Authority (NFA). The “Condi Rice” will also be exported to Hollywood, Wall Street, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, the District of Columbia and other similar corridors of power, fame and fortune in Europe and Asia. The Press Secretary said that the rich, the famous and the infamous can easily afford its exorbitant price.

The fourth new rice strain is named after Donna Rice, who was a figure in the 1987 sex scandal that ended the second presidential campaign of Gary Hart. According to the PALAY scientists, the “Donna Rice” strain will generate huge foreign-exchange income for the Philippines as it will carry genes that will boost the sex drives of people (of any sexual orientation or preference) who will be eating it. In fact, it might as well be marketed as the “poor man’s Viagra,” as one PALAY scientist will probably say.

Editor's Note: James Edward Rice is a former left fielder who played for the Boston Red Sox from 1974 to 1989. Mr. Rice continued the tradition of his predecessors, basebal greats Carl Yastrzemski  and Ted Williams as a power-hitting left fielder who played his entire career for the Red Sox.

The fifth new rice strain is named after Jim Rice, an American baseball superstar. According to the PALAY scientists, the “Jim Rice” variety may be a hit among baseball players, athletes and other sportsmen as it will carry a natural enzyme that can be a legal subsitute for the banned steroids and human-growth hormone. They say that Mr. Jim Rice will be honored to have the new rice strain named after him, as he was never accused of using the banned substances in his 15-year career as a baseball superstar. The Office of the President said that the exports alone of the “Jim Rice” variety will solve the budgetary deficits of the Department of Agriculture. Filipino farmers cannot afford to purchase fertilizer and so the exports of “Jim Rice” will enable the government to subsidize the acquisition of fertilizer pursuant to the “patented” plans of former Agriculture Secretary Joc Joc Bolante.

Editor’s Note: To learn more about the Coffea Liberica, please read Allan Albert’s The True Story Behind that "Cup of Kapeng Barako"

The sixth new rice variety is named the “Barack-O Rice.” The PALAY scientists cross-bred the “Jim Rice” with the Kapeng Barako (Coffea Liberica) of Batangas, and presto, they came up with a new strain. The “Barack-O Rice” is named after Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It can either be boiled or roasted. Boiled, it tastes like ordinary rice. Roasted, it can be brewed in lieu of coffee beans. After ingesting or drinking it, the consumers usually become agitated, make high-fives and exclaim, “Yes, we can. Yes, we can.”

Finally the Office of the Press Secretary said that the six new rice strains developed by the PALAY scientists will probably earn the President the next Nobel Peace Prize for finally solving the hunger and budgetary-deficit problems of poor countries. # # #

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