MT. SAMAT, Bataan -- Saying what the people need are "food on the table, not politics on the frontpage," President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo lashed out at her critics for continuing to engage in investigation and political jockeying even amid the fuel and rice price spike.

"... We need food on the table, not headlines; we need to invest, not investigate ...," Arroyo said in a speech at the commemoration of the “Araw ng Kagitingan” here.

Arroyo said, "No endless investigation will put rice on the table, computers in classrooms, or clinics in barangay [villages]."

Several senators vowed to continue with its investigation of the national broadband network scandal that implicated the President and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

The rice problem and the swine fund scam are also among the issues lawmakers said they also wanted investigated.

On Tuesday, a University of the Philippines professor said the government could just be projecting the rice crisis to divert attention from corruption issues.