By Camcer Ordoñez Imam ABANDONED — Only stories remain of a worthy project that made this place once a beehive of activity. Cagayan de Oro City – The long line of hungry people waiting for their turn to receive free hot meals from a kitchen named after the country’s popular President is now gone. What used to be a busy kitchen on Andres-Fernandez Street in Carmen Village is now abandoned and empty. What remains as a testimony that a Duterte’s Kitchen once existed is a sign pointing to the location which once bustled with activity. Dorothy “Dadat” Balaba, secretary of DK-CDO’s organizing committee, said the kitchen is “temporarily closed.” She did not elaborate. But neighbors have a story to tell. The kitchen, they said, was reportedly “besieged by controversy and internal conflict” prompting its closure in January this year after operating for less than a year. The owner of the lot where the kitchen once stood took back his property. Jun (not his real name) said the kitchen stopped its operations after a radio station criticized the quality of food being served and the conditional service. Jun said there were complaints that most of the meat intended for indigents were consumed by the volunteers themselves leaving those in line with more vegetables and little meat. The beneficiaries of the kitchen reportedly complained that they were made to wash the dishes in exchange for the free meals. When the kitchen opened, donations flowed from sponsors among them, New Gateway Eagles Club, the United President Duterte Group, ONE CDO, Soka Gakkai International-CDO, and PDP-Laban in response to the President’s promise that no one will go hungry in his administration. About 20 volunteers ran the kitchen. During the Marawi siege, the kitchen was made a warehouse for relief goods intended for displaced persons from Marawi. Today, people hardly talk about Duterte’s Kitchen, not even Balaba who declined requests for interview to shed light on the controversy that led to the kitchen’s closure.