AN APPEAL FOR RICE DONOR

With the onslaught of soaring food prices and the impending starvation of the less fortunate women and children in the troubled Mindanao of Southern Philippines, I am appealing to our well-meaning and affluent community to assist in the fund campaign of the UN World Food Programme to feed the hungry millions.

Reproduced herewith is the full text of MSN Philippine News published a while ago:

Agence France-Presse - 4/15/2008 2:31 AM GMT High food prices may force Philippines ration cut: UN agency

A UN agency may be forced to cut rations feeding more than a million people in the troubled southern Philippines because of soaring world food prices, it warned Tuesday. The World Food Programme has just 4,000 tonnes of rice left in its warehouse in conflict-hit Mindanao, a supply which will only last about two months, said Alghassim Wurie, the agency's deputy country director. If the WFP fails to get more funds it may be forced to "cut rations and the most affected would be women and children," Wurie said. "We are appealing for the donor community, the governments and the private sector companies to help us raise enough money to enable us to deliver support," Wurie told AFP. He said the World Food Program (WFP) will need 500 million dollars in extra worldwide funds this year due to rising food prices, with 19 million dollars needed in immediate "operational funding" for Mindanao. The WFP fed some 1.6 million people in Mindanao last year, most of them women and children in five central Mindanao provinces wracked by a decades-old Muslim separatist insurgency. WFP runs a novel food-for-education program in Mindanao, where children are enticed to return to schools in exchange for rice rations to their families, and also helps feed families displaced by the insurgency.

The repercussions of food shortage are now being felt and our sense of compassionate and humane feelings dictates our fervent desire to help in any way we can and save others in distress.

Let’s donate in any way we can.