By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

EACH year, each household in Quezon City is given a bagful of food items for Christmas through the Pamaskong Handog (PH) of the Mayor’s Office. Last year, we received the food items consisting of rice, spaghetti with torn plastic, dented cans of Alaska milk, CDO meat loaf and corned beef. I didn’t post the photos in social media, but reported it directly to the barangay with this note:

“Also paki feedback kay Mayor Belmonte na yupiyupi lahat ng canned goods at yung spaghetti ay warak at nagkalat sa bag. Huwag naman sanang ganyan. Parang nagpamigay sa homeless.” (Translation: Please inform Mayor Belmonte that the canned goods were dented and the spaghetti’s plastic was torn spreading itself in the whole bag. Please don’t do this. It is as if you are distributing to the homeless.)

The Christmas bag landed in the cart of an ambulant vendor, who requested for items we can discard, along with three bagful of old clothes, assorted household items, nonfunctioning electric fans and kitchenware.

According to research, dented canned foods can pose serious health risks that can result in food poisoning which could be life-threatening. Dents can create microscopic holes allowing bacteria to enter, producing potent neurotoxins that encourage food to rot, discolor or become moldy, which when consumed, may cause paralysis to death. Also, the dent may potentially cause the food to react with the metal, “releasing bits of the coating into the food.”

In May, we took residence in a different barangay. Having resided in the area only for seven months, we didn’t expect to get a PH Christmas stub, but the barangay volunteers distributed one per residential unit. We forgot about the stub until netizens posted dented canned goods coming from the Christmas bags. We decided not to claim our Christmas bag, and kept the claim stub as a souvenir.

I’m not sure if the same is happening in other cities, but I enjoin all local government units (LGUs) to pursue Christmas giving as an act of caring, if not of love, to be consistent with the spirit of Christian values. It can be done so that the recipients can find dignity and feel the “malasakit” (caring) and “pagpapahalaga” (valuing) from those who govern.

It can be done the Pasig City way, where PH bags are meticulously prepared and distributed per schedules “posted on the official Pasig City Public Information Office (PIO) Facebook page throughout November and December 2025” without fan fare, avoiding the grueling process of lining up in a place where politicians distribute them in public, to create a favorable image, carefully-staged for cameras to generate positive media coverage, as practiced by most LGUs nationwide.

Actions, statements and gestures designed for public spectacle and approval detracts from good governance and focuses instead on empty promises, short-term fixes and disregard for accountability. Under these patronage strategies, there will be no long-term solutions to corruption, the proliferation of dynasties, poverty alleviation, economic and power redistribution, environmental degradation or any other systemic reform. It fosters personality cults and undermines democratic processes, leaving the citizens robbed of their basic rights to health and a decent life, and worse forever drowning in floods and foreign debt, while politicians stack their “insertion” funds in condominiums and high-end subdivisions.

Performative politics must end. Tama na ang Dios-diosan (Enough of playing God-like).

A genuine spiritual and moral recovery is imperative during these times. In this, God will be there, always. God listens to Oratio Imperata, a unified prayer for Divine Intervention to address calamities or crucial needs. God listens, not only to Kara David.