Jomar Fleras: Feeding a hunger within

You can talk about something to death, impress hordes with your words of wit, wisdom and experience — but can you rightly say you have changed lives by it?

Playwright and social activist Jose Mariano “Jomar” Fleras, to the many whose lives he has touched, can make that claim.

Fleras is well-known in the world of theater for his plays that touch on social issues. Over 40 years ago, he wrote Kanser, a straight play based on Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.

Kanser, he said in a magazine interview in 2023, won the “Cultural Center of the Philippines playwrighting contest in 1979. It was first staged in 1980, and has since been staged (by various productions) every year except during the height of the pandemic.”

On its 40th year of restaging, Fleras and his team decided to present the story as a musical and changed the title to Ibarra, starring actor Piolo Pascual in the title role.

That Fleras is a man of intellect is apparent in his work for theater — to inflect social commentary into entertainment form, and see the product last for decades, takes more than a brain, but a depth of understanding.

Perhaps it is precisely this level of understanding that he, at some point in his life, decided to “act” on his opinions. Currently the executive director of Rise Against Hunger Philippines, Fleras is able to extend actual assistance to the poorest families.

“I organized it almost 10 years ago. Next year will be our 10th anniversary here in the Philippines. But globally, we’re like 27 years old,” he said on Pairfect, the DAILY TRIBUNE’S digital show where he was a guest recently.

Rise Against Hunger is “a global leader in hunger relief, mobilizing volunteers to package and distribute essential food and aid to communities in need.”

Under his leadership, the organization has been transforming lives and tackling food security with innovative solutions and dedicated efforts.

“I organized (Rise Agajnst Hunger Philippines) 10 years ago because of the issue of food insecurity and hunger in the Philippines. (Do you know that) 93 children die daily because of malnutrition and hunger? 93! Yes. Malnutrition and hunger. And we’re number 10 in the world in terms of child stunting. When you talk about child stunting, (it’s not just the) issue (on) short for one’s age or what we call in Tagalog, bansot. Child stunting leads to mental retardation. And a third of all Filipino children are considered stunted. So, imagine, a third of the future Filipinos can be functionally mentally retarded. So, what kind of future will we have? And that leads to intergenerational stunting, poverty and hunger. So, it’s a cycle, it’s a violent cycle that will continue unless we put a stop to it.”

It is not the first time Fleras has worked in similar organizations, having worked in “several projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development, Australian Agency for International Development, PATH, Family Health International, Management Sciences for Health, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the European Union and UNFPA. He has managed projects in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesia,” it says in the website of Rise Against Hunger Philippines.

Fleras, a graduate of the University of the Philippines and a fellow of the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Southern California, University of Hawaii, National University of Singapore and Curtin Technical University, certainly puts not just his brains to good use, but more so his heart for others.

The spark was typhoon “Yolanda,” after which the office if Rise Against Hunger in the United Stated “mobilized resources to assist the victims,” relates Fleras. “So, they came over here. And they realized that although the Philippines is a small country, the need is greatest here — especially when you talk about hunger and climate change. We’re number one in the world in terms of vulnerability to climate change. I know. Number one.”

Recently Rise Against Hunger was there after typhoon “Carina” hit. “We respond to disasters. For typhoon ‘Carina,’ we’re targeting providing food to at least 100,000 people. We’re doing scale here, so we’re not a small organization. We’ve also set up the first national food bank in the Philippines. And we’re a member of the Global Food Banking Network, and we’re able to mobilize food resources.”

Food banking, he explains, “is to collect unsold food, surplus food from manufacturing companies, from hotels, from the farms, and then distribute these to people who are in need. Globally, about 30 percent of all food that is produced is either lost or thrown away. And that 30 percent is enough to feed hungry people. So the math is very…the logic is very simple. Instead of throwing food to the landfill, why don’t you just give it to the poor, to the hungry, and you can feed them.”

Not stopping there, Fleras also initiated a dietary supplementation program for daycare centers and elementary schools.

“Because it’s very important that we give these children a fighting chance. A lot of these children go to school, walk to school for two and a half hours on an empty stomach. You can just imagine that. How can they possibly learn? And that’s the reason why the latest survey — they surveyed about 81 countries all over the world. And the Philippines ranks 77 in score. We’re kulelat. In terms of reading comprehension, math. We have to do something. What will our future be? Ang baba ng (very low) quality ng education. The level of intelligence of our children is far from competitive.”

Fleras is working on another play, following Ibarra. But there is no letting up on his work on Rise Against Hunger, which has bred other initiatives like food banking and feeding programs to sustain the mission’s loftier goals. “There’s so much work to be done,” he tells DAILY TRIBUNE.

“Actually, I am awake at night, just trying to juggle the numbers, trying to see saan ba kukunin yung pagkain nito (where can we source the food for this). I get phone calls early in the morning asking us for help, for donations, and sometimes you know, it breaks my heart we have to say no because we don’t have it; we cannot afford to provide especially if they’re hard to reach areas. So, I think what keeps me going is that, you know, whenever we do our feeding programs, I see the smile of children, the gratitude that comes from the families. So, that keeps us going. And to see that you are actually making a difference, no? In, Rise Against Hunger, we have this slogan: It starts with a meal. The meal is a starting point for women’s empowerment, for nourishing children, for better education, for livelihood programs. So everything starts with a meal.”

Jomar Fleras has led a life much in the background ensuring that minds are nurtured and challenged, and that stomachs are filled. It is not an easy job, but many are grateful that he pushes on.

“I think (there’s a saying that) to light the candle is to curse the darkness. There’s so much darkness. So you can spend so much time, especially when you’re writing, basically to call attention to the social realities. In some ways, the writing does not really change the society. You know it takes more than being critical about what society is doing — so I started that way; my writing was very critical of the social realities, the poverty, the hunger — but then I mean you’re not really making a difference. You should go beyond that. And instead of cursing the darkness, you light a candle. And this is my way of lighting a candle, trying to make a difference. In my simple ways. Why? I want to help people. If your heart is digging into it, you can do it in very simple ways. And you can, you just have to start.“