1 of 3(Part 1 of 2)To give us a sense of the state of our economy, we are periodically given indicators like GDP, inflation rates, minimum wage rates. I truly welcome this recent wage hike, as I have sat with so many nanays (mothers) and our staff members who are children of our nanays, and have seen firsthand what a difference this will make for their families. My interest was to find out whether what I saw in Mary Grace’s carinderia was an isolated story or a national pattern. Mary Grace’s pandemic loss, her sister’s death, her nephew’s accident, her brother’s stroke, each landed before the last had been absorbed. It is important to note that before the 2023 El Niño struck, rice was trading at approximately P42 per kilogram.