April is Filipino Food Month, a time meant for celebration — of culinary heritage, of flavors handed down through generations, of the quiet genius of cooks whose names we may never know, but whose recipes shape who we are. We are invited to remember, to take pride, and to imagine how our food might speak to the world.
It’s a beautiful idea. And yet, this year, the celebration unfolds under a sky that feels a little heavier. The aroma of promise, the poetry of food, has been muffled by something more urgent and more insistent: hunger.
This season, as cultural institutions unveil exhibits and chefs prepare multicourse tributes to regional traditions, campaign caravans crisscross the country. Politicians hand out food packs and folded bills in brown envelopes. They call it “assistance.” Others call it vote-buying. Either way, it tells us something we already know: The need is real. Food remains, for many, a form of desperation rather than delight.
At moments like these, it is hard to talk about heritage with unbroken conviction. It is difficult to ask the nation to turn its gaze toward heirloom ingredients, rare condiments or terroir when so many of our people are simply trying to put anything — anything at all — on the table.
As a chef, I have dedicated my life to food — not just to cooking, but to tracing its stories, protecting its roots and imagining its future. I believe deeply in the power of cuisine to shape identity and build bridges. But I have also come to understand that food, in our country, is not just a source of pride. It is also a mirror — and that mirror shows us things we might rather not see.
We are a nation of rich culinary traditions and persistent poverty. We produce some of the world’s most beautiful ingredients — cacao, mangoes, coconuts, rice — yet many of those who grow them cannot afford to eat well. Our cooks are resourceful, ingenious even, but often because they have had to be. Our carinderia cooks know how to stretch one chicken across many servings. Our mothers can transform leftovers into lunch. Our farmers harvest abundance for others while feeding their own families with what remains.
So while we celebrate Filipino Food Month, I cannot help but ask: Whose food are we truly celebrating? Whose tables are full?
We often say that food is love. And it is. But in a country where inflation bites harder than chili, and rice is more expensive than ever, food has also become a daily act of negotiation. A meal is no longer just nourishment. It is a balancing act, a sacrifice, sometimes a prayer.
I do not write this to dampen the joy of Filipino Food Month. Far from it. I write it because I believe we need to hold two truths at once. Yes, our food is extraordinary. And yes, many of our people remain hungry. The first truth should not blind us to the second. In fact, the first should compel us to act on the second.
Celebrating cuisine should not mean turning our backs on the realities of food insecurity. If anything, it should sharpen our awareness of it. Cultural preservation cannot live in a vacuum. It must be rooted in dignity, in access, in justice. It must speak not only to the past we inherited, but to the present we inhabit — and the future we hope to build.
There is danger in romanticizing tradition while ignoring the conditions under which that tradition survives. There is a risk that in elevating food as identity, we might leave behind those whose only concern is getting through the next meal.
We can talk about preserving adobo in its regional variations. But we must also talk about why pork is now unaffordable for so many families. We can celebrate the artistry of kakanin, but we must also speak of the landlessness that threatens our farmers’ ability to grow the rice from which those delicacies are made.
To be clear: I believe in the work of honoring and promoting Filipino cuisine. I believe our food deserves to be known and loved — both here and abroad. I believe that chefs, historians, farmers and home cooks all have a place in that movement.
But that movement must be broader than curated events and well-designed posters. It must ask harder questions. It must welcome the voices of those who do not speak in the language of gastronomy, but in the language of need.
Let us not measure the success of Filipino Food Month only in hashtags, dishes served or articles published. Let us also ask: Did we feed more people? Did we make it easier for farmers to sell what they grow? Did we bridge the gap between celebration and sustenance?
As a chef, I will continue to cook, to teach, to preserve what I can. But as a Filipino, I also hope to be part of something deeper — a food culture that remembers its roots not just in the romantic sense, but in the most literal one: rooted in the soil, in the waters, in the labor of the hands that feed us.
Food is not just identity. It is equity. It is memory. It is survival.
In the quiet of my kitchen, I still believe in the promise of Filipino food. I believe it can be a source of joy, of healing, of pride. But before all that, it must first be a source of sustenance — for everyone.
Because a celebration that leaves people hungry is not a celebration. It is a performance. And we are far too hungry, as a people, to keep performing.
