In the Philippines, everything is political. In a year prior to a national election, all statements carry a political undertone. What Ana Patricia Non started in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City, carries a very strong political message. General Antonio Parlade Jr. and Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy understood it immediately. And the people who saw the pantry phenomenon with myopic perspectives don’t realize that Non really sparked a bomb about to blow in the faces of those in government.
The pantry phenomenon is a not-too-subtle denunciation of the government's inutile approach to the problems of food shortages and the growing hunger among Filipinos displaced by pandemic. It was a slap to the face of the Senate, especially the Agriculture Committee, headed by real estate mogul Cynthia Villar, who has been all talk with no concrete action in the face of the challenges of food insecurity. It was also a denunciation of the more than 300 congressmen, including our own from Cebu, who are all hiding, while the people don’t have food to eat. These members of Congress continue to receive millions, even billions from public coffers while offering no solution to the impending starvation of millions. Non had the solution and the glorified incompetents in the Senate and the House had nothing to offer.
The reaction of Parlade in calling the senators stupid, at first sounded too loquacious, if not brusque, and even unbecoming of a true gentleman in uniform. But I applauded it, after analysis, because he has the guts to tell these do-nothing overpaid senators to wake up and face the impending revolt of the people. The immature and capricious repartee from some childish solons, in brandishing a threat to cut the budget of Parlade's unit, didn’t really hurt the general. On the contrary, it was a virtual “argumentum ad absurdum”, or argumentum “ad hominem”, hitting the person, and not focusing on the issue. It exposed the bankruptcy of ideas in the heads of legislators, who are supposed to be the wise men and women in the Upper Chamber of Congress. Non and Parlade, to me, are better qualified to replace Cynthia Villar, Joel Villanueva, Bato de la Rosa, Lito Lapid, or Bong Revilla.
The emerging pantry phenomenon is a brilliant idea built on the dictum “magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan”. They call it a communist doctrine or a socialist principle. But people are hungry, they don’t eat principles or doctrines. Revolutions start from a hungry stomach. Non had the solution. The senators and congressmen have none. They are all talk and no action, members of NATO; No Action, Talk Only. If the members of the legislative body, who are paid millions every month from the taxes of a suffering people, don’t have the solution, they should keep their mouth shut. It is better for them to continue hiding, not only from COVID-19, but also from the accusing fingers of the people that they betrayed by not using their brains like what Non is doing.
If Non runs for the Senate and if the elections were not manipulated by family dynasties and trapos, she would land at the number one place. She was able to create an idea which the richest senator Cynthia Villar, the perennial presidentiable Grace Poe, and the son of the late dictator Bongbong Marcos, or even the multi-billionaire Manny Pacman were not able to bring about. All their salaries should be donated to the pantry movement. The hungry and angry Filipinos do not care about ideologies or politics. They need food, and there is food in the pantry, not from the mouths of inept, incompetent, and lazy trapos. And this is a political statement.