On the Road with Families in Manila
By Jeremy Ianni
Manila, Philippines — The severe poverty here yet at the same time the immense wealth and diversity makes this a multi-faceted city. Its riches are not equally shared. Far from being a poor country, the Philippines is currently experiencing a period of bustling economic activity. Skyscrapers are sprouting from all corners and the rural exodus continues, so much so that nearly twenty million people now live in this capital city.
When I arrived here in January 2015, I wondered how I was going to immerse myself into the reality of the country, to understand it in order to help people in need get a bit of security back in their lives. I started off by tagging along with my ATD Fourth World teammates who support a community living under a bridge. They help families fill out the necessary forms to benefit from a massive relocation scheme commissioned by the Philippine government, for around 100,000 families. The relocation sites offer those who have swarmed to the slums of the capital the possibility to buy permanent houses with a small terrace, over a period of thirty years. But these homes are usually located far from everything in places where it’s very tough to find a stable job.
Soon after moving here, I met X who was still living under the bridge, but was about to be relocated. A few months after she had been relocated, she told me: “There’s no work here, so my partner has stayed in Manila.” Living conditions on the relocation site weren’t easy. She was pregnant and alone with four kids and her dad. He was very weak due to malnutrition, and he died several months later. X returned to the bridge shortly after, hoping to earn some money by washing laundry.
During a visit under the bridge in May, I found out that the government grants hadn’t yet been given to the families. It’s difficult to claim your rights when you don’t know how to read or write. X had asked a neighbour to write a letter to the local government for her. While accompanying her on her errands, I realised to what extent there was a lack of communication between these families and the authorities, and also how challenging it is for relocated families to find their bearings in administrative procedures.
X went back to the relocation site a few weeks later to enrol her children in school. However, yet another obstacle course awaited her. Without a birth certificate, children are not allowed to enrol. Three of X’s children are not on the civil register and so ‘don’t exist’ from an administrative point of view. We therefore offered to help her gather the documents to register two of her children.
X had just given birth when I visited the relocation site in July. I was taken aback by the young mother’s extreme fatigue and the family’s destitution. From their previous lodging, they had managed to salvage only a few scraps of wood with which they managed to make a small cot for the baby. A few days later, I accompanied X’s partner to the administrative office where he needed to fulfil some requirement for the late registration of their children. The father had also taken steps for his children to be allowed to take his name. However, because he had conjunctivitis that day the administrative officers refused to let him inside the office. I had to go in alone to speak on his behalf. I constantly repeated that I wasn’t the father of the children and that they needed to speak with him; but they didn’t make this possible. I was shocked and revolted by the situation.
Helping this family opened my eyes to what it means to live as vagrants, as well as to the consequences of relocation on family life. They had had to muster all their energy and go all out simply not to disappear, and to gain a few rights.
The fact that families are relocated to places far from their work is still on my mind. When X and her partner eventually got the long-promised financial grant from the Filipino government, they bought some linoleum for their home and were absolutely delighted. X had told me that she liked to cook sweet things, and that she’d like to have a small shop to sell what she cooked — but reality soon cut that idea short as she went on to ask, “But who’s ever going to buy anything all the way out here?”
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[This is a translation of a blog post written by Jeremy Ianni in 2015 when he was part of ATD Fourth World’s team in the Philippines.]
