(Video) PCF CNN Report – Pagpag

Published on Jun 1, 2012 by Ring Pull

CNN news report on the work of PCF – Philippine Community Fund.
Smokey Mountain rubbish dump Manila – Philippines.

Report following the ‘pagpag’ lady, selling chicken scraps thrown out by restaurants as food to many families living in slums.

Pagpag: All Eyes on Poverty in PH

By Ira Pedrasa, ABS-CBNnews.com
Posted at 05/01/2012 7:00 PM | Updated as of 05/01/2012 7:35 PM

Gov’t: We are now addressing the issue

MANILA, Philippines — All eyes are now on the Philippines. But beyond its slick tourism slogan is the “brutal reality” of poverty.

CNN showed on Tuesday a report on “pagpag,” which it described as a “grim staple for Manila’s poor.”

The report by Kyung Lah showed Felipa Fabon waiting for trash bags from restaurants. Fabon is seen sorting through the garbage to look for “pagpag” or food scraps, which she said she will later sell or cook.

(Video) ‘Garbage Chicken’ a Grim Staple for Manila’s Poor

By Kyung Lah, CNN
updated 11:15 PM EDT, Mon April 30, 2012
CNN.com

(CNN) — Felipa Fabon waits outside a local fried chicken restaurant in Manila. Crouching near to feral cats and rubbish bins, she isn’t there to meet friends for dinner but to search through the diner’s trash bags.

“I’m sorting the garbage, looking for ‘pagpag’,” she says.

In Tagalog “pagpag” means the dust you shake off your clothing or carpet, but in Fabon’s poverty- stricken world, it means chicken pulled from the trash.

Pagpag is the product of a hidden food system for the urban poor that exists on the leftovers of the city’s middle class.

(Video) “Pagpag” – Excerpt from BBC’s “Toughest Place to be a Bus Driver”

Uploaded by beameruno on Feb 22, 2011

…ito ang mga dapat pinag-uukulan ng pansin ng gobyerno ng PILIPINAS!

Pagpag: Survival Food for the Poorest of the Poor

Have you ever wondered whatever happened to the left-over food you did not finish in fast food restaurants? You may think they would have been thrown away and discarded for good. For sure they are headed to the trash bin after people leave them on the table. But what happens next is something you ought to know. The morsels of unfinished Chickenjoy in Jollibee or the left-over spaghetti in McDonald’s might yet save a family from hunger.

The leftover food stuffs are thrown in large black plastic bags and collected by a garbage truck. The truck travels towards a garbage dumpsite, either in Payatas in Quezon City or Smokey Mountain in Tondo, Manila. After the truck has dumped the trash in these garbage sites, the leftovers begin to change its nature: from trash to food. Scavengers would swarm on these morsels like they were gadflies, sometimes even fighting over them.The food we consider trash becomes for them sustenance.

You may think that it is cruel and inhuman to let people eat food thrown away by others. But that’s the way it is in the poorest slums of Metro Manila. Whatever that can be eaten will be eaten. It is the law of nature. It may be harsh but it is the reality. After all, who cares?

These food discards are called pagpag, an ukay-ukay term that has taken a new meaning. Pagpag in this context is to shake away the dirt and maggots in the food. The scavengers would smell the food to determine if it is still good or has started to spoil. If it still smells fine, more or less, then they will eat it right there in the dumpsite. Bringing it home may spoil it some more. Time is of the essence. Hence when a truck unloads some “fresh pagpag” in the dumpsite, an instant feast takes place. The scavengers do not mind the malevolent stench of the garbage that surrounds them while eating.

If the pagpag smells bad, they would simply bring it home to wash in a bucket of water. Some even re-fry the food for good measure. They think recooking would kill the fly larvae already infesting it.

(Video) Pagpag – Eating From Garbage

Uploaded by edlingao on Jul 20, 2009

Correspondents episode on people who live by eating our garbage