Pagpag: Survival food for the poorest of the poor

From Philippine Online Chronicles.

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 Chicken Joy in Jollibee or the left-over spaghetti in McDonald’s might yet save a family from hunger.


The leftover food stuffs are thrown in a large black plastic bag 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.

Read the full story here.