DAISY, 34, led me inside the sala with her baby clasped in her arms. It was dim and the preaching from the “vegetarian church” just right next to her parent’s house in Zone 6, Bugo was competing with my voice that was trying to sound grateful to her for agreeing to be interviewed. So we transferred to the dirty kitchen at the back of the house where it was more quiet.
It was quiet but the anxiety inside Daisy seems apparent through the post she made on a Facebook page of Feed Hungry Babies initiative. The exact chopped words say: "hello po.pwd ba nku e apply akong baby as beneficiary. 6mos.na xa.i am a solo parent (Hello. May I apply for the benefit of my baby? He is six months old. I am a solo parent)." She sat in front of me and then in a little while, she excused herself so that she could lay her six-month-old baby, Cris Joshua, next to her sister inside their room. She came back and took her seat again and then I threw the first question in Bisaya: Gigutom imong bata?
While hoping that she can get whatever little help from the said initiative, Daisy revealed in the course of our conversation, where she sounded apologetic most of the time, that she actually has an initiative of her own. She has started cultivating a small vegetable garden in a house that was just lent to her by a generous friend located somewhere in Poblacion, Tagoloan.
“Sa sud-an, di man pwede sige ka ug de lata mao nang karun naa nakoy gulayan sa balay,” she remarked. (You cannot just eat canned goods all the time that’s why I have started a vegetable garden at home.)
By de lata, she’s referring to the relief goods of six cans of sardines and two cans of corned beef both from the municipal government of Tagoloan and from Barangay Poblacion. Along with these de lata are 15 kilos of rice, two packs of noodles, and a pack of coffee and sugar. She is grateful for these supply but not long from now she knows that these will run out. And occupying a house in a gated community makes her uncertain if she will benefit from the amelioration program of DSWD for solo parents like her.
“So gikan karun, mamulak na to (eventually, the plants will bear flower),” she said in anticipation about her vegetable garden. “Pwede na dayun siya kan-un with sabaw-sabaw something (and then they can be ingredients for a soup),” she sounded sure.
Daisy brought the boya microphone closer to her as she enthusiastically had a rundown of the vegetables in her garden: alugbati (Malabar spinach), chinese kangkong (water spinach), camote tops (young leaves, leafstalks, and stems of sweet potato), sibuyas dahunan (onion leaves), kalamunggay (horseradish) and tanglad (lemon grass). She has planted these vegetables in either tin cans or plastic containers which she has asked tirelessly from her neighbors. And she hanged some on the fence and she placed some on the ground.
What Daisy has done is a response to the call of the government and of various organizations and institutions to plant vegetables in containers and in available spaces in households or in idle spaces in communities at this time of Covid-19. The regional office of the Department of Agriculture (DA) ran an initiative called Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat (ALPAS) to concretise the call. Vegetable seeds are given out for free from their regional office in Julio Pacana Street in the city to anyone who is interested. And the City Agricultural Productivity Office itself gave seeds provided by the DA to some 800 urban gardeners.
Vegetable gardening is to ensure sustained production, availability, accessibility, and affordability of food especially at this time of a health crisis. Archbihop Antonio J Ledesma of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of CDO said that vegetable gardening either in households and in communities encourages local produce that will sustain the vulnerable residents in the informal sector and those who are unable to gainfully employed at this time just like Daisy who used to do work in a beauty salon or through home service on the sideline at weekends pre Covid-19 days.
Among the vegetables she has in her garden at the moment, camote tops (young leaves, leafstalks, and stems of sweet potato) is beneficial for mothers because it is rich in calcium and iron. Alugbati (Malabar spinach), kalamunggay (horseradish), and tanglad (lemon grass) support lactation. The last two act as a galactagogue, a natural substance to support lactation. And according to a study, mothers who consumed kalamunggay daily saw significant increases in mothers’ breast milk volume and infant weight gain.
For anyone who is willing to start vegetable gardening, Angie Collera founder of Gulayan Sa Kabalayan (GSK) suggested to include talong (eggplant), okra (lady finger), monggos (mung beans), sitaw, and kamatis (tomato). “Dali ra na sila patuboon apil ang pechay ug alugbati kaya pwede sila tanum ana,” she said in a text message.
“Ginagmay ra man na sir oi (this is just a small-scale garden),” Daisy sent me a message along with snaps of her vegetables post interview via Facebook. But she is interested to have more -- I was thinking, perhaps to include beans and legumes which are rich sources of proteins and sweet potatoes and even bananas as substitute for rice -- especially that she is a lactating mother at this time of a difficult situation caused by Covid-19.
“Para sa akoa ‘kaon daghan Daisy ug utan para sa imong baby’ ug dili lang pud para sa iyaha, para pud sa usa nako ka anak, ug para pud sa akoa na nutrisyon (For me, ‘Daisy you have to eat vegetables for your baby,’ and not just for him, but as well as for my eldest, and for my nutrition),” she preached to herself.
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John Moncada is a faculty at the Technology and Communications Department (TCM) in University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (USTP)-Cagayan de Oro.