Scavengers No More: Looking at Homelessness in Metro Manila
By Corrie De Boer“Ma’am, there is a 2-month-old infant born in a pushcart to a scavenger family,” Lisa, a gaunt-looking young woman, reported to me after dinner one night in January. She, her husband Freddy, and daughter Claire have lived in the streets of Metro Manila for eleven years. A few nights earlier, after listening to tale after tale of police harassment and constant illness, I invited Lisa and Freddy to live temporarily at my home.
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“Where is this family with the infant living?” I asked Lisa. She explained, “Under a street shed a block away if it rains, and under the trees three blocks away during the day. At night, they sleep in the pavement in front of a bank.”
“Let’s go find them,” I insisted. As we approached the shed, a block away from my home, I noticed the tiny baby nestled in a cotton blanket lying silently at the edge of a pushcart, piled high with empty plastic bottles, scrap-tin cans, and old lumber. I saw the mother seated next to her three little children and tending a fire built from a square gallon can and fed by sticks of wood from a broken chair. The father was banging on tin cans, flattening them out, and preparing them for sale to a junk shop. Their 3-year-old boy was tied by the ankle to the pushcart to keep him from running out into traffic.
The baby was so frail and fragile I could literally hold her in the palm of my hand. This family now had my full attention, and I was drawn in to learn more. I found myself becoming personally involved in the lives of these two families, one of which lived adjacent to my own home. I felt the tug of something more than curiosity pressing me to find out more about a couple who, with their eight children, has lived on the streets for over twenty years.
Anna’s Story
The story starts with Anna, the 34-year-old mother, when she was eleven years old and living in Bacolod, an island city far south of Manila. She relates her experience as follows:
One day my mother explained to me that we were very poor. There was a man she knew who was going by ship to Manila. He would take me to the city to a family who would take care of me, provide schooling and a job for me—basically give me a new life. I was excited, took my few belongings, and boarded the ship, expecting a great adventure. For the first time I would have a chance to study and work at the same time.
When we arrived in Manila the man walked off the ship and told me to stay on the dock until he returned. I saw the man take my plastic bag with all of my possessions and walk away. Never suspecting evil, and with a heart full of hope, I watched people come and go until it started to get dark and a guard ordered me to leave the dock. My high expectations turned to lonely fear as hunger took over and the night closed in. I never saw the man again.
With nothing in my hand and no destination in mind, begging became my only means of survival. Hours of terror turned into days of panic, then apathy. I did not know anyone in the city. I did not know where to go. I was totally abandoned. I was afraid. At night, the pavement was my bed.
Amazed by Anna’s resiliency, I asked her how she managed to survive. She replied,
I begged. There was an old lady who took pity on me and fed me for a few months. Later on I met Tony, an orphaned 15-year-old boy who had ran away from home because of an altercation with his brother. He saw my plight, befriended me, and showed me how to live on the streets. Together, we faced an unknown future.
I didn’t learn everything about Anna and Tony’s life on that first day, or the second. I picked up little pieces here and there as I visited with them on the streets during my daily walks. As details of their story emerged, I learned that for twenty years “home” was a six foot by four foot pushcart occupying different street locations in Metro Manila. The pushcart doubled as the store where they did business and the sleeping quarters.
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Corrie De Boer is chair of the Board of Mission Ministries Philippines, a Filipino agency ministering among the poorest of the poor in Metro Manila. She teaches at Bakke Graduate University and Asian Theological Seminary. |
