Art by Jun Vince Dizon
Despite the threats of red-tagging for being associated with Marxist ideologies, founders of community pantries remained strong in their desire to uplift Filipino communities by providing for the poor and the marginalized. At the height of the pandemic, community pantries have become a gesture of development striving to keep communities intact and elevated.
Through TV news reports we have witnessed how people line up on long queues in front of community pantries in a struggle to collect free products that can get them through the day. With a sign that bore “share what you can and take what you need”, pantries have fed thousands of hungry Filipino families and improved their quality of living—although temporarily, but at least it did.
Our country has been facing underdevelopment issues worst in marginalized communities that, as the plague struck, continued to aggravate. Although the unemployment rate in the Philippines dipped from 17.6% in April 2020 down to 8.8% this year, as per data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, this still means that 4.2 million Filipinos remain jobless. Moreover, Kelly Bird, country director of the Asian Development Bank, perceives the poverty incidence rate of the Philippines to peak at 20% this year from 16.7% in 2018. This means that about 22 million Filipinos will remain poor from the previously 17.7 million. With millions of Filipinos idle and unable to work due to pandemic restrictions, community pantries helped alleviate their needs for food and other basic needs to sustain daily living.
When the birth of the first community pantry in Quezon City took place, more pantries have begun to emerge around almost every corner of the Philippines. This also proves why community pantries are pro-development—because they engage people to move and do what they can in sustaining the community’s growth. Nora Quebral, pioneer of Development Communication in the Philippines, notes that development is meaningful and true if it is community-driven, allowing people to identify their problems and needs and acting upon themselves in addressing them. As of May 30, there are already more than 2,000 community pantries in the Philippines, according to the data updated by the Community Pantries PH Facebook Group.
It is important that we appreciate this kind of movement because it gives us hope as we grapple our way to get through this pandemic. However, as Ana Patricia Non, founder of the Maginhawa pantry, argues it, community pantries should not resemble or glamorize the narrative of Filipino resiliency. Community pantries are born out of Filipino solidarity and hospitality in a time of need, but the government should still be held accountable in aiding its people’s necessities.
As we continue to go through the pandemic, we should preserve the mentality of helping our fellowmen in need with what we have despite our own incapacities. Sustaining our community pantries is one way, for through it we help feed empty stomachs and uplift despairing souls. Let us continue to keep our respective communities cohesive by sharing, and prove that we, as one nation, are working towards development.
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