This collective effort shows the strength of united Filipinos.
CAGAYAN DE ORO — In times of crisis, expect Filipinos to try to alleviate the suffering of those battered the most.
Drivers and riders of public transportation have been severely affected by runaway prices of petroleum products. Intending to help, concerned citizens, organizers, and youth advocates brought back the pandemic-era community pantries.
Read:Solons, transport workers slam ‘useless’ energy emergency declaration
Through community pantries, people can donate goods which the severely affected could get based on what they need. These are made possible through collective efforts, reminiscent of how such initiatives were established in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The revival started when community organizer Ana Patricia “Patreng” Non put up a community pantry at Maginhawa corner Magiting Streets in Quezon City on March 26. She was the one who started it during the pandemic.
She put up a rack shelf and displayed some vegetables and rice, with the familiar phrase, “Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan (Give what you can, get what you need).”
Non posted it on Facebook and it went viral. Other groups and citizens were encouraged to establish their own. There are now at least 12 community pantries in Luzon, according to Non’s March 28 Facebook post.
For her, the essence of community pantry has not vanished since 2021. It remains in the presence of relief operations, emergency responses, and community kitchens conducted to help fire and typhoon victims in the past years.
Understanding the struggle
In the southern part of Mindanao, the Youth Advocates for Pro-People Transportation (YAPPT), a network of young individuals and youth organizations opposing a bus project in Davao City, joined the solidarity. They went to public markets and called for donations for the community pantry they plan to establish.
Its volunteers also went to terminals and talked to the affected drivers to deepen their understanding of their present situation. The group learned that the jeepney drivers’ usual daily income was reduced to more than 50% due to oil price hikes, said Marlou Engreso, YAPPT spokesperson. “As they said, they would only get a net income ranging from P200-P500 (US$3.32-US$8.29).”
Read:Aid, other government measures not enough to cushion impacts of oil price hikes – groups
For YAPPT, putting up a community pantry means taking part in the drivers’ struggle.
Drivers of public transportation in Davao City get their goods from YAPPT Network’s community pantry on April 1, 2026. Photo from YAPPT’s Facebook page
Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay), an urban poor group that also led a community pantry, wrote in a Facebook post that this collective effort shows the strength of united Filipinos in the face of adversity.
It also stressed that people should be united in echoing the transport sector’s urgent demands, including the abolition of value-added tax (VAT) and excise tax on petroleum products to reduce their prices; the repeal of the downstream oil deregulation law that prevented government control over oil pricing and distribution; and the stop of the West Asia conflict which brought the sudden increases in petroleum products.
On March 27, YAPPT joined the jeepney drivers and concerned organizations in the Davao region during the nationwide transport strike, highlighting these calls.
Unfazed
Initiators said that the community pantries aim to help those in need. During the pandemic, however, organizers were accused of having links with the communist movement.
Non was among those baselessly red-tagged. In Cagayan de Oro, the organizer of the Kauswagan community pantry, including journalist Leonardo Vicente Corrales, was also labeled as a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
A poster is displayed at a community pantry in Barangay Kauswagan, Cagayan de Oro, on April 21, 2021, labeling the organizer and a journalist as part of the communist movement. Photo courtesy of the SALiGAN sa CSSP Facebook page via the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines
The police’s reported questioning on community pantry organizers also drew flak, prompting an official of the Philippine National Police-Human Rights Affairs Office in 2021 to apologize.
Read:Cops visit community pantries, question organizers
When asked about this, the YAPPT spokesperson told Bulatlat that the past occurrences were part of the considerations in the planning. He said they even sought the approval of the drivers they talked to about the community pantry they wanted to initiate.
Engreso said that they reminded themselves that there is nothing wrong with helping. “Above all, we should not stop being a humane community just because of intimidation.”
In a video posted at the Community Pantry PH Facebook page on March 27, Non said that people behind these relief efforts were also victims of calamities. Helping and demanding accountability, she said, can coexist. (DAA, RVO)
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