Pagpag

Also known as: Chicken pagpag · Pagpag (food scavenging practice)

Definition

Pagpag in the Philippines refers to leftover food, typically uneaten fast-food chicken and pork, scavenged from restaurant garbage bins, then washed, re-cooked, and eaten or sold at low prices in impoverished urban communities; the word also denotes the practice itself. Documented in Metro Manila’s poorest neighborhoods, pagpag emerged as a survival strategy where incomes fail to cover food costs, and it stands as a stark indicator of urban food insecurity. The term literally means “to shake off” and carries a separate older folk meaning of shaking off spirits after attending a wake. (Wikipedia)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Pagpag
Wikidata	Q7124456
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	pagpag
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	food security
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	household food security
Google Scholar	pagpag food scavenging urban poverty Philippines food insecurity
ConceptNet	food
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Chicken pagpag
Pagpag (food scavenging practice)

Examples and Analogies

The Midnight Harvest: Scavengers collect discarded but partly uneaten fried chicken from trash bags behind fast-food branches before dawn, like gleaning fields after a harvest, but from garbage.
Re-Cooked Resale: Karinderyas in informal settlements re-fry the scraps and sell them cheaply to residents, completing an informal food recovery chain.

Usage Scenarios

1. Household Survival

Families with no cash for the day’s meal rely on pagpag as a caloric stopgap.

2. Public Health Intervention

Health workers document pagpag consumption to target feeding programs and food-safety education in the same communities.

Strategies

Address root causes through jobs, food assistance, and social protection rather than penalizing scavengers.
Promote structured food-donation channels from restaurants to charities so surplus food is recovered before it becomes waste.
Improve waste segregation so food waste streams are separated from hazardous garbage.

Security and Safety Measures

Health authorities warn that re-cooked scavenged food carries serious risks of bacterial poisoning and contamination, especially for children.
Some local governments have banned the sale of pagpag after poisoning incidents, while advocates stress safe, regulated food recovery as the alternative.

Historical Context

The practice grew visible in the decades after the 1980s-90s consolidation of Metro Manila’s dumpsite economies, drawing media and documentary attention in the 2000s and 2010s as journalists followed the chain from fast-food bins to settlers’ pots. The word entered wider national consciousness through news features and films, becoming shorthand for the depth of urban poverty amid relative plenty. (Wikipedia)

Challenges and Controversies

Health Versus Hunger

Officials condemning pagpag on health grounds face the reality that for eaters, the alternative may be no meal at all.

Structural Poverty

Advocates argue the phenomenon indicts food waste and inequality more than it does the families who rely on it.

References

Pagpag