Mae Paner has always known how to command a stage. With wigs, wit, and sharp-edged satire, she became Juana Change—the woman who stared power in the face and laughed. Her performances weren’t just punchlines; they were political detonations. She knew how to provoke, how to entertain, how to wake a sleeping public.
But sometime in 2020, in the eerie quiet of lockdown, the applause faded. The monologues stopped. And Mae did something few public figures do well—she changed.
These days, her stage is the kitchen. Her costume: an apron and rubber slippers. Her audience: the hungry. Her script: a sandok scraping food from the bottom of a steaming kawa.
She still speaks truth to power, but now she does it with garlic and rice, not just words.
She didn’t plan to become a mother. But when she opened her garage and began feeding the city’s forgotten, the name came anyway—Mommy Mae. And slowly, she grew into it.
This is not a story about reinvention. It’s a story about returning—to love, to service, to the simplest act that says: I see you. I feed you. You matter.
The Shift: From Stage to Stillness
Juana Change was born in fire. She emerged during the height of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s presidency—a sharp-tongued, fearless character with a moral compass and a megaphone. “I wanted change. I Juana Change. I am Juana Change,” Mae says. “Our country deserves better.”
She danced in rallies. Delivered satirical sermons. Students adored her. Politicians—some—laughed nervously. Others didn’t laugh at all.
But even Juana, for all her fire, began to feel the limits of spectacle. “Was anything really changing?” Mae asked herself. “Parang wala naman!”
Then the pandemic hit. The streets fell silent. The shows stopped. People were dying. And fear crept in—not for her career, but for her conscience. “I could die next,” she thought. “So, what have I really done? Who have I served?”
An invitation came from Bro. Jun of Baclaran Church. “Can you help cook for frontliners?” he asked. It was meant to be temporary. But the first time she handed over a hot food pack to a stranger, something shifted.
“I saw myself in them,” Mae says. “I felt grace. This wasn’t just giving—it was receiving. It was something deeper than applause.”
The Kitchen: Where Activism Found Its Body
August 3, 2020. Mae Paner opened her garage. No permits. No playbook. Just instinct. A stove, a few volunteers, and the quiet certainty that people were hungry.
That first pot of lugaw was the seed. It grew into KAWA Pilipinas—a heart-led, volunteer-powered community kitchen born in the middle of the pandemic. Today, it has served over 450,000 meals to the homeless, the jobless, persons deprived of liberty, and survivors of calamities.
The name says it all: kawa—a giant wok used to cook for many. And in Mae’s hands, it became something sacred.
“This is protest too,” she insists. “Cooking is my love language. It’s also resistance.” In the context of Filipino activism, KAWA is both kitchen and cause—where food becomes fuel for change.
The KAWA kitchen has its own rhythm. On weekdays, the place finds its calm—quiet prep, steady hands, the hum of work done without fuss. But on weekends, the garage comes alive. Deliveries roll in. The stainless-steel prep table becomes a choreography of hands—volunteers chopping vegetables, stirring pots, passing ingredients wordlessly. There’s no applause, no spotlight—just the quiet conviction that feeding others is its own reward.
Then the tempo shifts. As soon as the food is ready, the rhythm of feet takes over—volunteers rushing to their distribution points, containers in hand. Mga gutom ’yan, inaabangan kami, Mae Paner says. Hungry people are waiting. They know when KAWA arrives.
Even in the middle of the rush, Mae steps out of the kitchen with a plate in one hand and several spoons in the other. O, tikman n’yo ito—masarap! she calls out. This isn’t the cold efficiency of mass production. Even when cooking for hundreds, each meal is made as if it were for family. With care. With pride. With the belief that every Filipino deserves to be fed with dignity.
Minsan hindi namin alam kung ano ang uulamin sa Sabado, she admits. Pero kusang may dumarating. Sometimes it’s a donation from companies. Minsan may dala ang mga volunteers mismo. Sometimes, a surprise guest, out of nowhere, comes and shares their blessings. Always, something comes. Of course we worry. But we also have faith. All these happen because KAWA has built an ecosystem of good—a grassroots movement powered by generosity and our shared humanity.
That faith has been rewarded. Over the years, KAWA Pilipinas has nurtured a quiet, consistent network of supporters—people who show up, often without being asked. There’s no grand plan. Just trust. Just love.
The core team is small. The rest are volunteers—students, artists, retirees, security guards, mothers, even chefs and celebrities—people from all walks of life drawn by the call to feed.
She remembers her mother, selling porridge at the corner of EDSA and Aurora Blvd. Mae, then just a child, would watch from a second-floor window. Gisa mo muna ang bigas, her mom taught her. Don’t just boil it. May proseso ’yan. May puso.
And so, no shortcuts in her kitchen. Kamote over expensive potatoes. Hibi instead of pork, so Muslim brothers and sisters can enjoy munggotoo. Food that’s affordable, inclusive, nourishing—and made with care.
Each ladle of lugaw is laced with memory. Each spoonful, a small ceremony.
Masarap magluto, Mae Paner says with a grin. Pero mas masarap magpakain.
Cooking feeds the body. But feeding? That feeds the soul.
In this garage-turned-sanctuary, the kitchen became her church. Her classroom. Her revolution.
A place where Filipino activism, compassion, and the aroma of freshly cooked rice come together.
The Becoming: A Mother by Devotion, Not Design
She didn’t ask to be called “Mommy Mae.” At first, Mae Paner resisted. “I told them, ‘Uy, di ko kayo anak!’” she laughs. “But it grew on me. Maybe because… maybe because mothering is my true nature.”
In quiet conversations, Mommy Mae reveals her truth. “Tao lang ako,” she says. She talks openly about her doubts, her fatigue, her moments of uncertainty—not as weakness, but as fuel. “My own struggles reflect those of others. So if I empower myself, I can empower them too.”
That’s what makes KAWA, her community kitchen and advocacy hub, truly work. Around the prep tables, roles dissolve. Students stir pots beside lawyers. Retirees prep beside out-of-school youth. High-ranking government officials pack food with beneficiaries who now give back. Even chefs—once disillusioned—have found a second calling beside Mae’s stove.
Here in Kawa’s community kitchen, the task is democratized. The vision, shared. No job too small. No title too grand.
“All of us can do something,” Mae Paner says. “That’s the power. That’s the dream.”
She still acts. Still plays Conchita in Batang Quiapo. Still delivers lines. “Of course, masarap ’yung pinapalakpakan ka sa entablado,” she smiles. “Artista ako, eh.” But eventually she had to ask: After all the applause, what have I done? Did Juana Change really change anything?
“Iba ang saya ko when I feed people,” she says, voice steady. “Even at home. It’s a joy that’s immeasurable.”
And yes, she jokes, “Obvious ba sa laki na mahilig ako sa pagkain?” But her joy runs deeper than flavor. It’s about connection. Healing. Presence. A kind of everyday grace. A reflection of Filipino food culture, where care and nourishment are one and the same.
When a teenage volunteer was caught vaping after a suspension, Mae didn’t scold him. She sent him home. And then, she processed it with the group. “Sometimes,” she says, “you have to be the tough mama.”
It’s not always easy. She’s been disappointed. Betrayed. Especially by those who once marched with her in the spirit of Filipino activism, only to abandon their ideals.
“I thought the enemy was outside,” she reflects. “Turns out, sometimes the heartbreak is within.”
And still—she stayed. She cooked. She mothered anyway.
There are no awards for this kind of labor. No red carpets. But there are moments. Quiet, small, holy moments.
The smile of a returning volunteer. A child saying, “I love you, Mommy Mae.” A sinaing without tutong. A truck full of donated rice.
Bliss, she calls it.
And when the day is done and the pot is scraped clean, she knows: this is her stage now. This is her legacy.
“I never had children of my own,” she says. “But I mothered a movement. I fed a people. I believed in the power of love—in action.”
In the Philippines, we often ask “Kumain ka na ba?” instead of “I love you.”
In Mae Paner’s kitchen—in Kawa—those two phrases are the same.
