WHETHER the skyrocketing prices of red onions are caused by incompetence, greed, failed harvest or any combination of these factors is somehow beyond the point: the prices have long reached grotesque levels. At the public market in my neighborhood — the biggest market in the biggest sitio in Cebu City's biggest barangay (village) — 1 kilogram of red onion or 'bombay' as it is called here, has been selling at P750 to P800 in recent weeks. Last December 13, the price was P380 — an all-time high then, but it went up to P600 per kilogram and then P800. Needless to say, my household stopped buying red onions and will buy again only when the price has become reasonable.

The local supermarket — known for its very competitive prices — also seems to have stopped selling red onions. Probably nobody is crazy enough to pay that much for a nonessential food item. The same supermarket incidentally has a Spanish wine on its shelves that sells at just above P200. Quercetin (stress on the second syllable), the plant pigment that red onions are rich in, is found in red wine as well, and now red wine seems a cheaper source of such nutrients.