Community Pantries Phenomenon in the Philippines

Abstract

Some businesses have closed down and many workers have been laid off, and the poor have become poorer due to the prolonged coronavirus pandemic. The Philippine government has been indecisive, if not insensitive, to the plight of the people. Thus, community pantries emerged and were established in response to the starvation of the people. The community pantry is a complex phenomenon so multiple perspectives are needed in order to understand it as a phenomenon. It started with a personal initiative by a single person, and then through the media, the news about the pantry circulated and multiplied in different areas of the country. Other leaders and organizers mobilized their capitals to these pantries. The initial personal initiative has transformed itself into a collective behavior or action of different groups. This paper explores the emergence of community pantries in the Philippines at the height of the coronavirus pandemic as a phenomenon, its challenges, the political consequences of initiating this pandemic response, and how such initiative permeated the consciousness of the Filipinos.