A Small Pebble Creating Big Waves An Analysis of the Impacts of the Maginhawa Community Pantry as a Social Movement to the Psychosocial Behavior of Filipino Community Pantry Organizers in the National Capital Region

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted numerous sectors of society, which led to a worsened state of nationwide concerns, including poverty, joblessness, and hunger. As a means to help and alleviate the woes experienced by Filipinos, numerous community pantries emerged, primarily advanced by Ana Patricia Non in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City. To have a better grasp of such a unique phenomenon, this inquiry explored how the Maginhawa community pantry, as the pioneering initiative that led a “social movement,” influenced the psychosocial behavior of the other Filipino community pantry organizers in the National Capital Region. The community pantry organizers were also asked about their perception of Ana Patricia Non and her actions, the motivations for their participation in the community pantry movement, and their take on the Bayanihan and the social movement characteristics of community pantries. The study has seven participants categorized into two: (1) individuals or organizational representatives who established their pantry initiative and (2) social movement experts who also enacted a community pantry - all of which were selected through the purposive sampling technique. The data collected went through a reflexive thematic analysis that goes together with an exploratory phenomenological approach while, at the same time, utilizing an inductive analysis along with semantic and latent coding strategies. The results show that (1) Ana Patricia Non's initiative was caused by interplaying factors and that her actions generally earned positive and favorable responses, (2) the community pantry organizers were motivated due to the influence of Ana Patricia Non, the “giving back to the community” attitude that they possess, and their first-hand observation of Filipino struggles amid the pandemic, (3) the Bayanihan within community pantries is marked by collectivism as perceived by the participants, and (4) the spread of community pantries were propagated by diverse elements, and that it had an intrinsic social commentary and social movement aspects, but lacked sustainability and long-term features.