PAGPAG a Meal for Survival

Garbage is a source of income for many people around the world, especially those who live in poverty. Those who generate garbage can make a lot of money by selling it to waste collectors.

Sorting through discarded metal, plastic, and aluminum cans will yield different types of bottles that can be sold or sent to recycling plants. Many poor people in Manila make a living from selling garbage.

But they are also looking for organic waste, which is a different kind of junk. Organic garbage from trash cans is processed, cooked, and served again as new dishes, just like many other recycling processes. The phrase PAGPAG, which refers to the act of picking up fruit off the ground and cleaning it, simply meaning brushing off the dust and filth, is used to refer to these dishes in Tagalog.

One out of three Filipinos live below the poverty line; it is difficult to obtain even the most basic necessities. For many people, finding food and goods by rummaging through trash has become a means of survival. Chicken bones and scraps of meat have become commonplace, and the Philippines is still having trouble with the distribution of income. The already wide gap between the rich and the poor is widening even further.

When a restaurant closes for the night at around 10 or 11 p.m., the staff starts cleaning up the space and placing the trash bags containing organic waste outside. This recycling process involves the buyers who collect food waste from the restaurants. In order to prevent the waste from going bad, they immediately travel around collecting the bags from different restaurants. By midnight, this collection is generally finished.

In terms of the number of slums, Manila is one of the world's top capital cities; one of these slums is also regarded as the largest; however, recent economic growth hasn't improved the situation; rather, poverty is on the rise from different restaurants throughout the city. Bird drove his truck with the trash bags to this pile of garbage in the slum; sorters were already waiting; they offloaded the truck and started to sort the garbage, usually within minutes.

Their job is to look for food waste scattered throughout a pile of garbage other leftovers are ignored, and they only need chicken bones with bits of meat left over by whoever, rice, and vegetables are set aside ready to be sold as animal feeds such as for pigs and chicks. No need for masks to protect them from the dust and smell, nor proper clothing for this filthy work; only bare hands are needed. The most expensive and sought-after chicken bones remaining attached with bits of leftover meat.

The Sorting is completed by the time the sun rises. Bird sells the chicken bones to food vendors in the Manila slum of Tondo. The chicken bones are wrapped in bags weighing ten kilograms each and are taken from the waste pile.

This food waste is used to make Caldereta, a Filipino style stew in which meat is slowly simmered in tomato paste. It begins by chopping up the ingredients and cleaning the chicken bones four times in water before letting them dry. Afterwards shallots are fried to release their flavor before adding the cleaned chicken bones and a dash of salt. The trick is the tomato sauce, which not only adds flavor but also masks the offensive odor coming from the waste. After mixing it thoroughly and cooking it on a low flame for another 15 minutes, we have a hot meal of Caldereta ready to be served.

In truth, PAGPAG has failed to address the country's hunger problem. There is a small glimmer of hope for the lowest of the poor, but it still entails tremendous risks, even death because some leftovers are disinfected before being disposed of.

In the most impoverished slums of Metro Manila, pagpag is a necessary survival food. The empty stomach will still enjoy it even though it has already gone bad. In contrast to the usual fare of salt and veggies, many scavengers actually regard PAGPAG as comfort food.

The only difference between slum life and jungle existence is that there is already prepared food to be found amid the mounds of rubbish. A scavenger needs all of his survival skills in this situation, including jockeying for position, burrowing, clawing, shaking, and eventually picking up a taste for trashed food. It makes no difference. Regardless, it is still food.

The PAGPAG is not only one of the most overt representations of extreme poverty in the Philippines but also a representation of Filipinos' innate desire to survive.