Community Pantries and the Criminalization of Kindness
The Tagalog word maginháwa, from the root word, ginháwa, comes with the defiance of a protest poem penned in a time of crisis: it means wellbeing, ease of living, healthy disposition, safety, happiness.
The Maginháwa Community Pantry and the others which sprung all over the country are thus more than a social phenomenon. It is a welcome state of mind, and to the powers that be an irritation and a reason for rage. It exposes not only the mediocrity and ennui of the mechanisms of power without meaning to, it also lends to the voices of dissent a stronger resonance among those too hungry and too stricken by poverty and uncertainty to make sense of what is happening all around them.
All so suddenly, the message of why Filipinos have been protesting for the better part of five years is clear: we are, as the cliché goes, being huddled like sheep to the slaughter, forced into the fangs of violence and pangs of hunger even as the State stockpiles hundreds of billions of donations and loans supposedly earmarked for the pandemic response.
People lining up to “take what they need, share what they can” becomes a sort of looking glass where the subtleties of exploitation and cruelty by state players are brought to light. The way the people responded — with kindness, generosity, and order — likewise crushed the government’s narrative that Filipinos need to be disciplined.
But more than the exposure of the elements of abuse, the more damaging aspect of the community pantries revolve around the now accepted fact that the public can function and operate in favor of their wellbeing without having to grovel for government assistance.
For an authoritarian government dead-set on using dependence on the state apparatus as a tool to shape submissive behavior, self-reliance is defiance. To the Duterte administration, to be free to look after our own concerns, bereft of the trappings of trapo politics, proves the apparatus’ worthlessness.
Thus, with almost mathematical predictability, the forces of ill-will began their blitzkrieg against the community pantries by red-tagging the people who sparked this humanitarian revolution.
One meme going around social media said, “Did you know? These so-called ‘Community Pantries’ are supported and advocated by Kilusang Mayo Uno and PISTON. These organizations are classified by NTF-ECLAC as COMMUNIST TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS.”
Pro-Duterte trolls weighed in on the campaign, labeling the spontaneous sprouting of community pantries all over the country as an organized, well-funded effort to boost communist recruitment in the areas mentioned.
As a matter of course, Patreng Non, the woman who sparked the community pantry movement, said over social media last night that the operations of Maginháwa Community Pantry will have to come to a halt for the time being.
“Maginhawa Community Pantry will momentarily stop operations for our safety and those of the volunteers. I’m sad because we can’t distribute the goods that we prepared the whole day because of the #RedTagging that is happening […] For sure there will be a lot of people who will be in line with us tomorrow but they will have to wait for the next day before it will be distributed. Especially the other Community Pantry had problems with the police earlier […] I’m afraid to walk alone to the Community Pantry at 5AM because of the baseless accusations against us. I just really want to help and I hope you don’t get it wrong.
Quezon City mayor Joy Belmonte, after talks with Patreng Non, said in a statement that she will personally assure her and other like-minded individuals that “the local government of Quezon City fully supports Community Pantries. Indeed, these initiatives highlight the bayanihan spirit inherent in our QCitizens. The city government will therefore ensure that the organizers and beneficiaries of Community Pantries remain safe and unimpeded.”
The mayor also said, “I have requested QCPD District Director Brigadier General Antonio Yarra to conduct an investigation regarding Ms. Non’s apprehensions and earlier experiences. I will likewise meet with Station 9 Commander Police Lt. Col. Imelda Reyes, under which jurisdiction Maginhawa falls, to further discuss Miss Non’s security concerns. In these difficult times, let us allow kindness and selflessness to prevail. Mabuhay po tayong lahat, at magtulungan po tayong lahat.”
As for the Quezon City Police Department (QCPD), it said in a statement that it “does not and will never allow alleged Red-Tagging”:
“QCPD expresses sincere apology particularly to the affected party for the inconvenience that the inadvertent post could have caused and reassured of her safety and protection. We are now reaching out with the organizer/outlet manager as the QCPD is very much willing to support the noble cause especially in this time of pandemic. As social media handlers maintain official social media platforms, the QCPD leadership reminded them to be more circumspect and sensitive in their functions to protect the interest of the people and to sincerely serve the public.
“PBGEN ANTONIO C YARRA said that; ‘We do not discredit any groups instead we encourage BAYANIHAN spirit in support to Mayor Joy Belmonte’s united stance to address the needs and plight of the people amidst the pandemic.’”
How this will all pan out, of course, remains to be seen.
In another side of the metro, within Pasig City, the Eastern Police District had no qualms setting up their own community pantry with no less the Maginháwa Community Pantry inspiring the effort. More than the usual sardines, rice, and noodles, the EPD officers also distributed bibles, face shields and face masks.
Just hours before the act to sabotage kindness and the bayanihan spirit, I raised the issue of security concerns for operators of community pantries while I was in talks with some journalists over Clubhouse app.
In an authoritarian government, the criminalization of kindness is a mathematical certainty. And I’m not alone in my unease. Other netizens raised the possibility of sabotage through violence, disorder and the like. This is not at all far-fetched. Many activists who were killed in 2019 and 2020 had been red-tagged prior to the assassination.
The red-tagging of community pantries is a sign that all our ties to freedom and self-reliance, including our ties to fellow Filipinos, are being severed by criminalizing kindness.
It’s bad enough that the pandemic has severed nearly all possibility of human interaction without this authoritarian state contributing to the crisis.
But as expected, the machinery of silence and disinformation is running full throttle. In Duterte’s dystopia, feeding the hungry is terrorism, speech subversive, and empathy a crime worthy of death.
The day we fail to see ourselves in others is the day we lose any connection to our fellow Filipinos.
The State knows that for as long as kindness is outlawed, for as long as we doubt one another, for as long as government permission is required for any all acts of compassion toward our neighbor, there is simply no way for Filipinos to band together and be a force to be reckoned with.
Make no mistake: the Community Pantries movement is a cry for freedom. If the wall is the poor man’s press, as Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano once wrote, the community pantry is the poor man’s weapon against hate.
It is proof that while the State can manipulate our minds, it has absolutely no power over our hearts.
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Joel Pablo Salud is the author of several books of fiction and political nonfiction. He is a columnist for LiCAS News Philippines and contributing opinion writer for PhilSTAR Life. He currently chairs the Writers in Prison Committee of the Philippine Center of International PEN.
