The community of Ulingan is what others would describe as
hell on earth; god’s forgotten children or just a place indescribable in words.
The community of informal settlers, exiting out of 1.500
families (not individuals!) is positioned closed to the north harbor, right
next to a canal. The houses, mostly consisting only of a few planks tacked
together. How they get from one place to
the other when the water comes is unclear to me…
I saw naked kids playing in the dirt, man trying to fix
their houses and women cooking.
Some of the families provide their livelihoods by theproduction of coal- of course without
proper clothing, mask or even gloves. They “cook” the wood barfeeded and with
raw hands. They also collect the coal like that once the process is over.
Afterwards the kids will come and collect nails and other metal things with
little magnets in order to make a little additional money.
Not only because of the rain and the frequently over
spilling canal does the ground consist of mud- it is garbage juice! Everywhere!
The entire place is covered in it. People live in it, children playing
barfeeded in it, something I could not bear to see. Sometimes knee-deep, mixed
with trash, and wastewater…I don’t know how to describe those picture except
with horror!
The smell of rotten trash, feces and smoke from the
production of coal is everywhere and penetrates your clothing and your nose.
Within a few minutes you have the smell sticking on you- even after showering!
However, the people in the community are chitchatting,
friendly, even making jokes and laughing. It seems that even in those
conditions they see a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning, go to
school and not drink yourself to death.
I must admit being at that place has immediately changed a
few of my perspectives. Although I was aware about poverty and already used to
work with the urban poor in San Francisco, I just had no idea!!!! That
experience has opened my eyes. I feel emotionally dumb, somehow I reached the
limit I can take and went beyond and just can’t understand anymore…The biggest
question in my mind is how can it be
that here in Manila shopping malls are getting constructed in the size bigger
than the Olympic stadium in Berlin while
people desperately fight for the right of appropriate housing in those
shantytowns and communities of informal settlers. Of course, I do not want to
blame the people of Manila, since I was in Guatemala I know that greedy
assholes rule the world and do not care for the suffer, inequality and
injustice. And I have seen in Guatemala what rural poor mean- but the urban
poor, poverty concentrated on such a little spot in such a density- that is
hard to digest.
Approximately 500.000 families of informal settlers live in
Metro Manila. By counting five people per family (which is considered a small
family) we are talking about 2.500.000 informal settlers living in conditions
they have never asked for but have to do so, so that the rich can live on the
expenses of the poor! Think about that
when you go for shopping the next time…
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