Transformative pantries

“Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan. Kumuha batay sa pangagailangan (Give what you can only afford. Get what you only need)” is the single powerful transformative principle of community pantries spontaneously organizing all over.

By both addressing the giver and receiver simultaneously, the slogan, more than anything else, transforms whoever we are.

And, transformative change in people in these desperate suffocating times of widespread hunger has always been our crying hope. We yearn for a new day where our basic humanity reigns.

Our collective hopes for edifying basic humanity are now upon us, partly answered by the community pantry.

So startlingly potent is the transformative call of community pantries, despite it being handwritten on a simple cardboard, it leaves many of us as I have been in awe and wonder, at a loss for words on what it all means and what it does to us.

But Ms. Ana Patricia Non, she who was “the spark who started the prairie fire,” says it best: “This is not a charity. This is like mutual aid.”

Ms. Non is correct. Mutual aid indeed is the central message of the community pantry. But Ms. Non also makes it very clear mutual aid is also about us living for and caring for our communities.

It is only when we have intact in our lives a sense of community, of that of our neighbors, do we truly reclaim for ourselves the indomitable Filipino selfless spirit of loving and caring for each other.

This is also the time for us to remind ourselves we never did really lose our sense of looking out for our fellow Filipinos, of sharing some of our food with them.

It has always been in our cultural DNA, as many of the very much older Filipinos who have endured their own terrible times, tell us. We even have a word for it — bayanihan.

Yet, bayanihan isn’t only about kindness and of “giving what we can afford,” but is also about placing our trust on our fellow Filipinos.

And, the call to “get what you only need” is all about us redeeming our trust for fellow Filipinos.

The pantry system is built on trust, says Ms. Non. She strongly believes people will only take what they need from the pantry.

She strongly believes needy members of her community are instinctively aware that the ones at the end of the long lines they have formed are also in need of food as much as they do.

In fact, the emphasis on trust is wherein we are forever indebted to Ms. Non. She has crushed the biggest lie against vulnerable Filipinos.

“I think that we should integrate with basic masses so that we can get to know them, so it can dispel our preconception that they are greedy (let’s focus on those who are truly self-serving and those who owe the citizenry),” says Ms. Non.

Ms. Non’s almost incredible faith in the masses is breathtaking. Her faith proves true.

The vulnerable poor patiently lining up in Maginhawa, as well as in other places as soon as curfew breaks in the morning, have admirably risen to the challenge and are doing their share.

People do take only what they need for the day and, in more ways than one, told us, as one of those who lined up says,

“being poor is not a bar to being a good person.”

But even as people line up, they themselves too are changed.

As one noted writer notes, since “the community goods are freely given without anyone demanding a feudal sense of gratitude to one person, but rather collective gratitude to the community,” we Filipinos now realize a painful truth — it is only we who are able to build things and save ourselves.

In short, not owing anything to any one person or public institution but only to fellow nameless Filipinos transforms us.

So much so, it is now easier for many to see government’s lapses. The community pantry is a stark reminder government has miserably failed to adequately address the basic need for food.

At the same time, the community pantry also puts to the lie that only a powerful few — owing to the feckless feudal nature of our society — can help.

We, no matter the station in our lives, when we come together have all the power to help each other.

“Mutual aid indeed is the central message of the community pantry.

“The community pantry also puts to the lie that only a powerful few — owing to the feckless feudal nature of our society — can help.