Catastrophic hunger

It would be difficult for us to imagine extreme hunger here in our corner of the world, especially this Christmas season. The Filipino Christmas, after all, is never without food, however simple.

More often than not, long tables in Filipino homes are filled to the brim for a Noche Buena feast – a smorgasbord of spaghetti, noodles, lechon, cheese, wine, fruits and what-have-you. Those who don’t want to cook are in restaurants or in five-star hotels dining out with the whole family.

Visit any Filipino home and even those who barely have anything to share will offer you whatever they have, however little. Neighbors help each other. In fact, those who can barely feed their families are the ones more willing to share.

Even people sleeping on the streets receive a bit more kindness during this time of the year. I know this because as I strolled along a busy boulevard on Christmas Eve, I saw a group of Badjaos receive boxes of packed food from strangers.

Unfortunately, the situation is bleak and unimaginable tens of thousands of kilometers away from our home country, there in faraway and conflict-ridden Gaza.

My heart and thoughts are in that warzone. It’s heartbreaking to see this humanitarian crisis unravel and unfold and now develop into a crisis of epic proportions.

Because of the conflict, there is a risk of famine occurring within the next six months if the current situation of intense conflict and restricted humanitarian access persists, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

IPC is a multi-stakeholder platform that analyses data to determine the severity and magnitude of hunger crises, according to internationally-recognized scientific standards.

As noted in a recent report by the World Food Program (WFP), based on the latest food analysis of IPC, roughly 2.2 million people are in crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity.

“The IPC report further highlighted that 26 percent of Gazans (576,600 people) have exhausted their food supplies and coping capacities and face catastrophic hunger (IPC Phase 5) and starvation,” WFP said.

“WFP has warned of this coming catastrophe for weeks. Tragically, without the safe, consistent access