By IGE RAMOS
On Sunday, February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, the world witnessed a seismic shift in the tectonic plates of cultural dominance in the form of a halftime show.
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as Bad Bunny, delivered a complex, multi-layered dish of Hispanidad that left the American audience both scorched and curious.
For a food writer exploring the world through the culinary lens of the Filipino diaspora, the imagery was impossible to ignore — a 13-minute “love letter” to the world, written in the ink of Spanish lyrics and the sweat of the Caribbean.
The ghost of the zafra
The most striking visual element was the sugarcane. In the Santa Clara football field, the people on tall green stalks were not wearing props; they were towering totems of a shared history of oppression.
To understand this, one must look to Sydney Mintz’s seminal work, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.
Mintz taught us that sugar was the engine of the industrial revolution and the primary justification for the transatlantic slave trade, transforming the Caribbean and the Pacific into “sugar colonies” — factories in the field where bodies were broken to provide cheap calories for the West.
Bad Bunny was reclaiming the zafra — the (sugarcane) harvest — as he danced through the maze of sugarcane fields singing Tití Me Preguntó (Auntie Asked Me). This serves as a stark reminder that the “sweetness” of American capitalism was founded on the “bitterness” of the soil in Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 is the common wound we all bear. The Philippines was effectively “purchased” by the United States for $20 million after the Spanish-American War, while Puerto Rico and Guam were seized. The United States was not merely interested in islands; it also desired sugar.
The crystalline connection
The 1898 transfer of sovereignty also transferred massive agricultural assets.
In Puerto Rico, the “central” system turned the island into a monoculture, displacing small farmers for massive American-owned mills.
Simultaneously, in the Philippines, the American market created a powerful “sugar baron” class in Panay, Negros, Batangas, and Central Luzon, while the actual tillers — the sacadas — lived in a cycle of debt.
As Mintz argued, the sugar plantation was the first truly industrial enterprise, requiring global logistics and massive labor.
The diet of these “sugar colonies” evolved out of necessity from the scraps of the plantation economy.
Both Puerto Rican and Filipino cuisines share a love for bold, preserved flavors and heavy textures designed to sustain a worker through a twelve-hour day.
| Element | Puerto Rican zafra influence | Philippine hacienda influence |
| The staple | Arroz con gandules (sustenance) | Rice and tuyo (laborer’s breakfast) |
| The sweet | Tembleque (coconut and sugar) | Kakanin (portable energy) |
| The byproduct | Ron caña (White Rum) | Panocha or muscovado (unrefined sugar) |
The map of the diaspora
If Bad Bunny provided the visual manifesto, Illyanna Maisonet’s Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook provides the culinary blueprint.
Maisonet offers a raw look at displacement and resilience, highlighting that “Puerto Rican food” is a living entity evolved through the migration of over five million people to the U.S.
Her Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá philosophy — the feeling of being “neither from here nor there” — perfectly mirrors our own Balikbayan culture, where the flavor of home is reconstructed in kitchens from Daly City to Dublin and Dubai.
Maisonet also explores the politics of the plate, such as how the U.S. Jones Act and plantation monoculture made the island dependent on imports.
This explains the ubiquity of Spam, Vienna sausage, and corned beef — canned meats in both Puerto Rican and Filipino pantries — a legacy of American military presence and food aid.
Capitalism as canvas
There is a delicious irony in seeing these revolutionary themes framed by the logos of Apple and Levi’s.
This is our modern reality: the cultural capital of the Hispanic world is being brokered on the stage of American sports and hyper-capitalism.
Yet, Bad Bunny utilized that very platform to flip the script, using the machinery of the empire to broadcast the soul of the colony.
His high-energy perreo is a defiance of the rigid, mechanical movements of the plantation; it is the joy of the body reclaiming itself from the machinery of the market. As the show came to an end, the Jumbotron displayed the message “The Only Thing More Powerful Than Hate is Love.”
The digestif
In this climate of global tension, we are often told solutions lie in policy.
But as I have always maintained, true diplomacy happens at the table — or on the stage.
We can use massive corporate platforms to demand visibility and respect.
For Puerto Ricans and Filipinos, sugarcane is a reminder that our identities, music, and flavors have endured, and it is no longer merely a representation of the “sugar baron.”
We are the sweetness that outlasted the power.
Glossary
Arroz con gandules — Puerto Rico’s famous national dish. This tasty one-pot meal has medium-grain rice, nutty pigeon peas (gandules), savory pork (usually ham or bacon), and a rich, fragrant base called sofrito.
Kakanin — a diverse array of traditional Filipino snacks and delicacies that are typically prepared by steaming or baking sticky rice (malagkit) or rice flour with coconut milk and sugar.
panocha (panutsa) and muscovado — panocha is an unrefined brown sugar derived from sugarcane that is renowned for its deep color, moist texture, and rich, toffee-like molasses flavor. It is used in traditional sweets such as kalamay and as a sweetener for coffee. However, panocha (or panutsa) also refers to the solid, disc-shaped discs that are frequently accompanied by peanuts (panocha mani). Muscovado is the general term for this type of minimally processed sugar with a high mineral content, which provides a deeper flavor than regular brown sugar.
Perreo — a style of dancing, often described as grinding, closely associated with reggaetón music that originated in Puerto Rico in the late 1980s.
Ron caña — cane rum, a traditional, often homemade or “moonshine”-style rum in Puerto Rico that is commonly referred to as “pitorro,” “cañita,” or “lágrimas de monte.” It is renowned for its potency and fruit-infused (curao) flavor. Historically, it was produced clandestinely, but it is now also produced legally. It is a culturally significant beverage that is distinguished from commercial rums by its rustic production and distinctive flavorings, such as quenepas, mangoes, or coffee beans. Ron Caña Clandestino is a contemporary interpretation of this tradition.
tembleque—a traditional Puerto Rican coconut pudding, it is known for its smooth texture and distinct “jiggle.” The name is derived from the Spanish word “temblar,” which means “to tremble” or “shake.” It is similar to Kapampangan tibok-tibok.
tuyo—a type of salted fish that has been dried in the sun. Sardines and herring are the most common types, and so are anchovies, rabbitfish, and spinefoot. It’s a breakfast food that is often served with fried egg, garlic rice, and a vinegar dip.
La zafra—the name for the seasonal sugarcane harvest, which used to take place from January to May. The word comes from Arabic words that mean “harvest time” or “gathering time.” It is very important to the island’s history, economy, and culture, especially when it comes to Afro-Puerto Rican heritage and the island’s farming past.