‘Labtingaw’ for sale

Mitzi Rubio, a mother of two arranges her “labtingaw,” a less salty and less dry version of “bulad” (dried fish) near their house on stilts in a swamp area in Dipolog City, Mindanao. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, 2 out of 10 or 25.44 million Filipinos were poor in the first half of 2023 and the subsistence incidence says 9.79 million persons can’t buy their basic food needs.