I WAS eating yesterday my usual slice of egg pie while browsing Twitter when I saw this UberFacts ‏tweet: “Starbucks is going to start donating 100 percent of its leftover food in partnership with the nonprofit organization Feeding America.”

My instant reaction: “Starbucks should do the same thing in the Philippines. Hotel restos, McDo, Jollibee & other food outlets should follow.” This elicited some retweets, mostly in agreement.

TeddyBoyLocsin, his lawyerly reflexes sharp as ever, twitted: “That would be nice so long as all judges promise not to entertain lawsuits over spoiled food.”

I volunteered the info: “What some restos do is make recipients sign waivers, even for take-home leftover.” I saw this done recently in a Makati hotel’s Chinese restaurant when we asked our favorite waiter to please wrap up some leftover.

A fine dining outlet of a luxury hotel on Roxas Blvd. has this policy of dumping with the slop the unsold expensive cakes and pastries, all untouched, at closing time. The manager told me so when I inquired out of curiosity and sense of wastage.

Even their personnel, he said, are not allowed to bring home a tiny piece. The reason given was, as TBL foresaw, the avoidance of suits in case of food poisoning and incidents of one biting the hand that had fed him.

A friend in San Francisco, newly migrated to the Bay Area, once worked in an eatery serving an all-chicken menu. They were allowed to bring home unsold food, but gorging on chicken for days on end could make one grow feathers. So they usually dumped the excess.

■ NGO food-sharing network needed

THAT ITEM on Starbucks in the US giving away unsold food caught my attention, because of disturbing statistics that millions of Filipinos still go hungry, and that a great number of those who manage to have something to eat are malnourished.

In the slums of the national capital itself, there are those who make do with nothing but rice sprinkled with salt. There are also those who subsist on“pagpag” – leftovers in burger and chicken houses that the scavengers grab and shake (“pagpag”) clear of ants and dirt before eating.

They are among the teeming masses, kept eternally poor by design or neglect, who jostle for a hundred pesos in exchange for their precious vote come Election Day.

In the giant mall near our place in Quezon City, one can see uniformed contractual workers troop at noon to carinderias outside and have lunch for just P35, consisting of rice, a viand and soup. It is not nutritious, but that is all they can afford with their minimum daily wage.

Indeed, there should be some way of channeling excess food, not crumbs, to those who have virtually nothing to feed their children. This can involve not only Starbucks, McDo, Jollibee, KFC, Chowking, and the like, but also name restaurants overflowing with food.

The donor establishments can charge the added expense — if any, since they will be throwing away the unsold food anyway — to their Corporate Social Responsibility budget. Their earthly credit and reward is the thought that they had helped feed the hungry.

But this has to be done in a systematic manner. It would be unwieldy handing out food to the poor lining up at the door by closing time. Maybe an organization, like Caritas Manila, can take delivery, sign the waiver if needed, and handle the organized distribution.

It would be a big mistake to ask the mayor’s office or the Department of Social Welfare and Development to take charge. Better to have a religious or non-government network to do it for “the least of our brethren.”

(* Re the egg pie mentioned in the first paragraph, I have found it to be the remedy for my constipation. You might want to try it. One whole pie, good for four days, costs about P215.)

(** “Feeding America” is a US-based non-profit nationwide network of more than 200 food banks that feed more than 46 million people through food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community agencies. Headquartered in Chicago, it was founded in 1979.)

■ Roxas must discard excess baggage

THE DOUBLE burden of Mar Roxas, the Liberal Party-administration presidential candidate, is that he has to campaign not only for himself but also for President Noynoy Aquino. This is because issues against his patron have been weighing Roxas down.

Roxas has to defend the Aquino administration before he can present his own qualifications and program of government. The term he seeks is being marketed as a continuation of Mr. Aquino’s Daang Matuwid, which is not easy to sell because people have stopped listening to that tired old line.

He has nothing to do with many of the big issues against his patron – big enough to warrant the filing of criminal cases against the President after his tenure – but Roxas still has to spend time explaining them away.

So as not to waste time defending somebody else, Roxas should look for a way to distance himself from these mistakes of his patron. But how does he do this without looking ungrateful and without jeopardizing his access to the machinery and money (billions!) of the administration?

President Aquino himself has to recognize Roxas’ dilemma and – if he really wants him to win – do some adjustments from his end.

I am one of those who believe that President Aquino has no Plan B candidate (such as independent bet Grace Poe). If my perception has basis, it should not be that difficult for him to give Roxas the space he needs, to enable the candidate to rid himself of excess baggage and finally fly.

After all, the main objective is to have Roxas, his candidate, win.