Blood Money

Local authorities in the Philippines are attempting to combat an outbreak of mosquito-borne disease by placing a bounty on the nefarious insects. Five mosquitoes fetch one Philippine peso, those captured alive being summarily executed, and villagers have responded with entomoclastic alacrity. Nevertheless, there are some who still urge caution, and the possibility has been raised that the more entrepreneurially inclined might start breeding mosquitoes in order to turn them in. What nasty, scheming minds some people have. A governmental spokesbeing even went so far as to suggest that communities should be rewarded for cleaning up stagnant water: a nightmarish mirror image of the civilised world, in which communities pay to have their water turned into sewage, and where any bounty on brittle, blood-sucking, droning parasites would result in the elimination of virtually the entire political and media caste.