APRIL is Filipino Food Month. It was made official through Presidential Proclamation No. 469 issued in 2018 by then President Rodrigo R. Duterte. The aim is to create a nationwide appreciation and preservation of Filipino culinary heritage, as well as celebration of our farmers and fishers who produce our food.
Appreciation and promotion of Filipino food is being led by the private sector through the Philippine Culinary Heritage Movement (PCHM). It lobbied the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Department of Tourism (DoT) to plan and organize activities and events in various parts of the country for the whole month of April of every year.
According to PCHM President Jam Melchor, “Filipino heirloom food products and practices are slowly disappearing in the face of globalization of culture.”
PCHM hopes that through our celebration of Filipino Food Month, it will spark conversations and interest among members of our national food industry — from scholars to restauranteurs to chefs to food producers.
For 2025, the Filipino Food Month celebration’s theme is “Sarap ng Pagkaing Pilipino, Yaman ng Ating Kasaysayan, Kultura at Pagkatao.”
Food is more than sustenance and a basic human need. It is a powerful expression of culture, history, and identity. The act of preparing, sharing, and consuming food is embedded in social rituals and customs that reflect the values, beliefs, and heritage of communities.
From holiday feasts to street food stalls, food serves as a lens through which we can understand the diversity of human experiences. Food is a cultural artifact that tells stories of migration, adaptation, community, and belonging.
Every culture has a unique cuisine, shaped by geography, climate, religion, and historical influences. Culinary traditions are not arbitrary; they are the products of centuries of lived experience, passed down through generations as a form of cultural preservation.
Food is also a marker of identity. For immigrants and diasporic communities, traditional dishes can serve as a tangible link to their homeland and heritage. Having familiar food in unfamiliar settings give a sense of home and of self. In multicultural cities around the world, where diverse cuisines flourish side by side, sharing food becomes a form our cultural dialogue.
Filipino food is a vibrant, diverse, and flavorful culinary tradition that reflects the Philippines’ complex history, geography, and cultural influences. It is known for its bold flavors, creative use of ingredients, and unique blend of indigenous, Spanish, Chinese, American, and Southeast Asian elements.
Filipino cuisine is not monolithic. It varies widely across the country’s more than 7,000 islands, but it shares some common themes and ingredients that give it a distinct identity.
Scholars and historians identify the key characteristics of Filipino cuisine. One is the interplay of sour, sweet, and savory flavors, as with adobo, our national dish. A defining feature of Filipino food is its love for sourness, often achieved through the use of vinegar, calamansi, or tamarind (sampaloc). Garlic, onion, and tomato are common base ingredients for many local dishes. Vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce (patis), and bagoong (fermented shrimp paste) are essential flavoring agents.
Rice is the backbone of almost every Filipino meal, which explains the popularity of unlimited rice deals in Pinoy eateries. Most Filipino dishes have indigenous and foreign influences, particularly those of our colonizers and trading partners. There is also regional diversity in Filipino food, where a dish can be prepared differently depending on where you are in the country.
Filipino food is described as being all about comfort, contrast, and community. It is very Filipino to greet everyone with “Kumain ka na ba?” (Have you eaten?) and followed by an invitation to eat, “Kain tayo (Let’s eat)!”. We eat when we are celebrating and when we are mourning. And every meeting is a like a party with food as the main item on the agenda.
Food is definitely cultural, but it is also very much political. Food is deeply entangled with power, inequality, identity, and global systems. Food is never just food. It is shaped by who grows it, who controls it, who gets to eat what, and who doesn’t.
Food production and distribution are inherently political. Governments, corporations, and international institutions make key decisions that affect what ends up on our plates. From subsidies, tariffs, trade deals to agricultural policies and land ownership laws, these power dynamics influence what gets grown (favoring cash crops over local staples); who profits (typically big agribusiness corporations, not small farmers), who eats well (the rich) and who goes hungry (the masses).
Our Philippine food system promotes the planting of crops for the export market while local communities struggle with food insecurity. It is the legacy of colonialism and a sign of ongoing neocolonial dynamics in the global food system.
Hunger and food insecurity are political. Because hunger is rarely about lack of food. It is about lack of access. We can actually produce enough food to feed everyone, yet millions still go hungry. It is the unequal system causing that. So, hunger is not just a humanitarian issue, it is also an issue of justice.
If we are to preserve and appreciate Filipino food, we must go beyond food security and push for food sovereignty.
Food security is having enough food, regardless of where it comes from. Food sovereignty, on the other hand, is the right of people to define their own food systems — what they grow, how they grow it, and how they eat.
While food definitely connects us, it can also divide us because of unjust global power structures. Understanding the politics of food means asking deeper questions about justice and sustainability.
As we celebrate Filipino food this April, let us also talk about food sovereignty and the rights of indigenous peoples, peasants, and small-scale farmers and fishers as they resist industrial agriculture and promote sustainable food production and consumption.
