What would have happened if corporate packaged food (CPF) had not been available in neighborhoods that entered lockdown in Manila after the appearance of COVID-19? Is it possible that a minor failure in food provisioning to a distressed urban poor could have triggered looting and further social unrest? This paper takes these questions as a starting point to put forward two hypotheses.<\/p>\n
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Firstly, CPF was effectively utilized as an instrument of tension management during the first enhanced community quarantine (March 15 to June 15, 2020).<\/p>\n
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Secondly, the donation of food packages and cash transfers became normalized practices within the governmental rationality of a bloc of social actors: state agencies, corporations, NGOs, religious organizations, and other philanthropic groups.<\/p>\n
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This paper is based on primary and secondary sources in Manila\u2019s urban poor neighborhoods: Payatas, Tatalon, and Dakota.<\/p>\n
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In sum, this paper states that a complex governmental rationality saw CPF deeply embedded in the practices of donating food and transferring cash to poor people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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