On April 1, 2020, two weeks after the lockdown, residents of Sitio San Roque in Quezon City took to the streets to demand aid from the local government. They were violently dispersed and many were arrested for mass gatherings. Meanwhile, the small farmers and fisherfolk that make up the majority of the country’s food producers were unable to sell their harvest as economies came to a grinding halt, businesses shut down and movement was restricted. Monocrops grown for export had nowhere to go, and the possibility of vegetable dumping seemed inevitable, even in times of scarcity.

But citizen action in the form of mutual aid also flourished during this period.