Community Pantry PH
Updated: May 17, 2021
“FROM each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Sounds familiar, right? Similar to the slogans you see in the community pantries sprouting all over the country, but no, it’s a quote from Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. The principle refers to free access to and distribution of goods, capital and services. A friend from the academe and another one from “UP commune” sent me that and alerted me about what Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) front organizations could be doing other than sharing food. They went further by saying: “We should act fast; we have been there and that’s how we agitate the masses.”
There is no question that sharing food is a noble one; some even decided to immediately set up one in their own communities. That’s the spirit of bayanihan in the works. At this time of the pandemic, when everyone and everything is affected, including the government and its ability to meet its tax revenue collection targets, we really should be helping each other. But please, spare our people this crap. This is not the time for politicking. This is not the time to agitate people to hate the government.
We should encourage more people who have the capacity to help to share. And let us not scare these well-meaning donors by telling them: “Sorry, we have to stop the feeding program because the government red-tagged us.” Huh? Anong drama ‘yan? Meron pang paiyak- iyak. (What kind of drama is that? With tears to boot.)
If you are doing something good for your country and people, like feeding the poor, then you have nothing to worry about. Why even worry about the government or police asking questions or checking on your activities? That’s standard procedure for law enforcers. We check on permits if those are required, observation of Inter-Agency Task Force protocols, modified enhanced community quarantine or general community quarantine, or why people even have to sign blank sheets, before getting their food.
The problem is when you know you are doing something else other than sharing food. Knowing now about the cunning and deceptive ways of the communist terrorists and their front organizations (or do we still deny we know it?) in pushing the masses into the armed struggle, the local executives should be on the lookout too.
Naku, Mayor, Congressman, Senator, gising na gising na ang taong bayan. Sila na mismo ang nagsasabi sa amin na suriin mabuti ang gawain ng iilan na hindi maganda ang mga hangarin. Kung gusto nyo pang manalo ulit sa election, tumulong na lang tay