Poverty in the Philippines

Manila

The United Airlines flight from San Diego to San Francisco was a short one, only an hour. The United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong was a long one, 14 hours. For the last leg of the journey, the flight from Hong Kong to Manila, I had to transfer to another airline, DragonAir. This flight was 2 1/2 hours. But I had to wait for three hours before I could board the airplane in Hong Kong for the flight to Manila.

The airplane landed on the runway and came to a stop. It was just after midnight, local time, on Wednesday, the 10th of September. I looked out the small airplane window into the darkness and saw the lights of the terminal in the distance. After a delay of two hours, we were allowed to proceed to the gate and disembark.

I assumed that I was entering Terminal 1 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport. The sprawling complex is in Pasay City, a part of metro Manila. Metro Manila is made up of a series of smaller cities: Pasay City, Caloocan, Las Piñas, Makati, Malabon, Mandaluyong, Manila, Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, Parañaque, Pasig, Quezon, San Juan, Taguig, Valenzuela, and Pateros.

After retrieving my two bags, I discovered that I had arrived in Terminal 3, instead of in Terminal 1. I walked to the front of the building. My guide, Tony, was waiting for me. Together we got into a taxi, and Tony, speaking in Tagalog, gave our destination to the taxi driver. The ride lasted only ten minutes. The Heritage Hotel, like the airport, was in Pasay City.

I slept for only a few hours. In the dining room, I ate breakfast, and fifteen minutes later I rushed into the lobby and met my guide, who was wearing a white shirt and black pants and waiting impatiently for me. We proceeded to Tondo, located in Manila City. (See the upper, left section of the map below.)

Tondo has approximately 65,000 people per square kilometer. It has no sewage systems and no gas and electricity facilities. Tondo does not draw outsiders. It does the opposite. It repels them.

I got out of the taxi and walked into the slums. Tony advised against it, but I ignored his words. Thirty minutes later, I got back into the taxi. The taxi driver started the engine of his small sedan, and we proceeded to Ermita, also in Manila City. It was not an area as devastated as Tondo, but still it was depressing. Ermita does draw a large number of outsiders, but they are mainly men from South Korea looking for sex. The most famous landmark in Ermita is the L.A. Cafe. Again I got out of the taxi and walked along the streets. This time Tony went with me.

Next we went to a similar area with prostitutes in Makati City. This district also draws a large number of outsiders, but they are primarily men from Europe and the Middle East. They flock to P. Borgas Street.

As we left Makati City, I rested in the backseat of the taxi and thought about what I had seen in Tondo and Ermita and on P. Borgas Street. The problems were nearly overwhelming. I had seen these three places on previous visits, but I wanted to see if there had been any changes for the better since my last visit in December. There had not been.

Now the taxi driver was taking Tony and me back to the airport. The driver dropped us at Resort World, adjacent to the airport, where I would sit for the next three hours at Maxim's Cafe and where my guide had an appointment with another client. I would wait in Maxim's Cafe until it was time to go to Terminal 3 for my flight to Mindanao and Davao City, the next stop on my journey. The flight would leave at 4:00 PM.

Manila is exactly the type of city one would expect to encounter as the capital of a country where the ruling elite is very rich and where most of the rest of the people are very poor. The population of the Philippines is 100 million. The numbers of the poor are many millions.

But I have high hopes that the new political and economic reforms, as well as increasing foreign investment, will spur socioeconomic development. I believe that many families will escape poverty and that many women will be able to leave the sex industry. Analysts forecast that the average rate of growth of real GDP in the Philippines will be 5.8% over the period of 2015 to 2024.

Davao

The flight on a Cebu Pacific plane from Manila to Davao on the island of Mindanao took two hours. Inside the plane, all of the flight attendants were female and looked as if they were less than 19 years old. We landed in Davao at Francisco Bangoy Airport at 8:45 PM. It was Thursday the 10th of September. I felt tired because I had slept little the night before.

The darkness outside the airplane was broken only by lights along the runway. They were white, red, and blue. When I looked outside a second time, I saw the airport was deserted with no planes parked at the gates, no trucks moving around, and no airport personnel anywhere. It had been raining when we left Manila, but it was not raining in Davao.

The airport was a modern facility but also a small one, with two buildings next to each other by the runway. The airport was 1/2 mile from the center of the city and an equal distance from the Gulf of Davao. A two-lane road, the C.P. Garcia Highway, ran in front of the airport.

After collecting my baggage, I walked to the front of the terminal, got into a taxi, and gave the driver the address of the house in Robinson's Highlands where I would be staying for five days.

At that hour, traffic on the highway was light, but close to the business district, a series of cars and jeepneys competed with each other for space on the road. To either side of the highway, people stood in front of roadside businesses. Some of them sat on cartons or chairs and ate from pots or plastic containers.

Davao City, with a population of 1.4 million people, had not made a good impression on me when I visited six months before. The streets and buildings of the city had seemed ugly and old fashioned, but my visit then was short and hurried. On this trip, I would stay longer and look at conditions more closely.

I wanted to investigate the status of socioeconomic development in the region and, especially, I wanted to compare the living conditions of the slum dwellers on the beach in the city with the living conditions of other poor people. Also, I wanted to compare the two groups of the poor with other residents.

Davao City is the capital of Davao Province on Mindanao, the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines.

Davao City has an interesting history. From the 1950s through the 1980s, the city was known as the murder capital of the Philippines. Then, in 1988, Rodrigo (Rody) Duterte was elected mayor and set about removing criminals from the streets. Today, they are gone. Duterte is still mayor and has turned Davao into the safest city in the Philippines. Citizens say, not without a curious sense of pride, "Our mayor killed all of the criminals."

Duterte also brought new development and new roads to Davao. According to government statistics, the average value of a construction project in Davao City increased from $33K in 2009 to $78K in 2013. These figures may be modest by most standards, but they are significant in an area which remains largely rural and mostly poor. Farming and fishing continue as the most important economic activities in the Davao region.

Residential District

On Friday, the 11th of September, still groggy from my flight across the Pacific, I awoke. At 10:00, my guide, named Gia, knocked on the door of my rented house in Robinson's Highlands, asking if I was ready.

I said, "No," but she replied the taxi had already arrived. Gia had long, dark hair and wore a blue blouse and grey skirt. She was 33 years old. We went outside and got into a new model Kia sedan. Gia spoke quickly in Visaya to the taxi driver, saying, "Take us to Quezon Boulevard."

The taxi driver turned in his seat, smiled at me, and passed a small, white card over the seat. It read, “Chuy Isidro, Bay Taxi.” Beneath the name was a telephone number. I glanced at the driver. He did not look a day older than 17. He wore a yellow and purple Los Angeles Lakers jersey.

“Call me at any time day or night,” Chuy said. “My phone is always on. I am always working.”

At the main gate of Robinson's Highlands and C.P. Garcia Highway, we stopped. We were facing south. To our left was a building with a series of stores and offices. On the ground floor was a pharmacy, called Mercury Drugs, where I had gone the previous evening to buy two bottles of water.

We turned left on to the highway, and then we turned right on Bacaca Road. As we proceeded, Gia explained the concept of barangays or city districts, each one with its own official designation, according to the numbering system of Davao City. Barangay 23-C was our destination. It occupied a stretch of coast just outside the central business district. It was known for its slums, especially one called Isla Verde.

We passed through an area which the locals called El Rio, next to the muddy, slow-moving Davao River. On both sides of the road there were new condominium complexes. We passed the Dizon Elementary School on the left and the Phoenix Gas Station on the right. Five minutes later, we passed the Bajada Bible Baptist Church on the right and the Davao Alliance Bible College on the left.

“My best friend goes to that church,” Chuy said. “But I don’t go with him. I am too busy.”

Business District

On J.P. Laurel Avenue, we left behind the residential district and entered the business district. On the left we passed the sprawling Victoria Plaza with its wide assortment of shops and a McDonald's restaurant. On the right we passed two gas stations and a Nissan car dealership. The cars on the lot were shiny and clean.

Small and large stores alike lined both sides of the avenue. We passed through an intersection with Ramon Magsaysay Avenue. On the left, I saw the northern end of the Ateneo de Davao University, run by Jesuits.

Gia said, "I went to school there and studied economics. My uncle paid my expenses because my father died when I was nine years old, and my mother had five children. We lived in the slums.” Gia looked upset.

When Roxas Avenue reached the intersection with Quezon Boulevard, Chuy brought the small Kia to a halt. On the other side of the boulevard, a smaller but also paved road continued in a southward direction toward the beach. The sea sparkled as it met the sunlight. It looked idyllic, but I knew it was filled with sewage.

“The plan is to cross Quezon Boulevard and keep moving in a straight line as if we were going all the way to the water where the poor live in the slums,” said Gia. “But we will take a tricycle taxi.” she added. “We’ll rely on a tricycle taxi driver local to find a way through the maze.”

Gia and I walked to the other side of Quezon Boulevard. A lean, middle-aged man wearing only a pair of red shorts and rubber sandals and pedaling a three-wheeled taxi appeared. Gia spoke to him in Visaya, and we got into his taxi.

“Right now, we’re in Barangay 31-D,” said Gia. “We’ll pass quickly through it and then through barangays 21-C and 22-C.” Gia paused. Then she added, “At the edge of Barangay 23-C, where the line between land and sea is blurred, we will enter Isla Verde.”

A breeze came off the water, but it provided little relief from the heat. The day already was humid. Now it was becoming hot. I was glad that I had remembered to bring my wide-brimmed hat. I pulled it lower on my head.

The driver and Gia exchanged words. Gia told me his name was Catalino. "He lives in Isla Verde,” she said. “Catalino is Muslim. But his neighbor, a man by the name of Ray, is Christian. We will visit him."

Slums

Catalino pedaled in a southerly direction, toward the water. The roadway was paved, but quite narrow. On both sides, I could see businesses. Some were small, no more than doorways into vague spaces. Others were bigger with open fronts, offering portable electronics, batteries, and children’s clothes.

At the next street, Catalino turned left, and we proceeded to move along the narrow roadway. “Many of the streets in these coastal barangays don’t have official names,” Gia said. “The locals have their own names for them, but I don’t know any of the names.”

A few minutes later, Catalino brought the taxi to a stop. “We’ll cross this street,” Gia said. “It’s the extension of a street called Emilio Jacinto.” Gia paused. Then she added, pointing her right index finger to the right, “If you look over there, you can just see the top of the Piapi Mosque. Look for the mint dome.”

“We’re entering Barangay 21-C now,” Gia said. On the right we passed a large structure. “It’s a basketball court,” she said.

At the next intersection, Catalino turned right on another road leading south toward the sea. “This road is the extension of a street called Fatima,” Gia said. On both sides, I could see dwellings and small stores.

Fatima Street led to a cluster of buildings on the beach. At this point, there was a paved road running parallel to the Gulf of Davao. We passed through Barangay 22-C in minutes and entered Barangay 23-C.

The place looked like the slums of Manila, equally squalid, smelly, and filled with trash. People had made shelters with materials they scavenged along Quezon Boulevard and other roadways, such as Ramon Magsaysay Avenue and Sales Street. Their clothes were cast-offs.

According to the city government, informal settlements in Davao had reached 13,000 families in 2010, the last year for which official data were released. But officials now say the households have surpassed 20,000 families. The total number of people living in slums throughout the city, as a result, is about 200,000.

Barangay 23-C itself had a population of 15,000. All of it was land owned by the city. The residents paid little or no rent.

I could see scars left by the massive fire which had destroyed thousands of homes a year before. In only a few hours, the inferno had burned almost everything.

Catalino brought the taxi to a halt. He said something in Visaya. Gia turned to me and said, “We’ll walk from here.” She and I got off the back seat of the tricycle taxi. We walked a few paces toward a cluster of low, one-story buildings. I stared at them. “You are looking at Zonta Elementary School,” Gia said.

Catalino whistled sharply, and a boy of about 10 emerged from a doorway across the street. The boy came and gripped the tricycle by the handle bars. He steered it back across the street.

Isla Verde

Catalino moved ahead of Gia and me. We followed him down a hard-packed sand path toward the water.

“We’re entering Isla Verde,” Gia said. “The whole neighborhood has about 200 dwellings.” I could see that some of them rested on stilts one to three meters above the ground so that during high tide the water swept away the feces and other waste. Other houses further up the sand had concrete floors.

I walked over to a house with an open door and looked inside. “No water, no electricity, and no bathroom. Right?” I asked. Gia shook her head. “They live hard lives,” I said. “They have to buy bottled water for cooking and drinking. They have to urinate and defecate in the sea or in plastic bags. Dysentery and other illnesses are pre-ordained. Nearly all of the children are stunted in height and weight by malnutrition. People here often have no place to bathe themselves or wash their clothes.”

A few minutes later, I found myself encircled by seven boys and girls. They laughed and touched the back of my right hand to their foreheads as they announced my arrival. They wanted money or candy.

Catalino, who was walking in front of us, shouted a greeting to someone out of sight. A man emerged from behind a partially built wall of wooden sticks. He was dressed, like Catalino, in shorts, but, unlike Catalino, he was young and muscular. He looked like he was about 30.

The man’s name was Ray. He spoke no English, only Visaya. Catalino explained that Ray had a wife and four children, three boys of 10, 8, and 6 and a girl of 2.

At this point, Gia started asking questions and talking to Ray in Visaya. Several minutes later, she told me that the three boys attended school when they were not sick and were not hungry. She also mentioned that Ray had asked her for money three times. But I already knew. I knew every word in Visaya for money.

Ray’s house had been constructed beyond the reach of the water at high tide and rested on a concrete pad. The walls were wooden slats with spaces between them. The roof was a collection of pieces of corrugated iron.

As I moved into the miniature house, I could see, through an opening in the opposite wall, Ray’s wife, Linda, and daughter outside. They were talking with another woman and another little girl in the narrow space between their house and the neighboring structure. Ahead of us, on the floor, one of Ray’s sons was stretched out on the wooden floor, asleep. Both Gia and I bent over the boy. Gia asked him in Visaya if he was sick. He opened his eyes and said he was not.

I said to Gia, “He is not telling you the truth. We will return in two days and see if Linda has taken him to the clinic. If she has not, then we will take the boy to the clinic with her.”

Ray's house was approximately 50 square meters in size, about the dimensions of a mid-sized closet in the U.S. It had one room with a partition of wood in the middle creating two separate spaces. The partition was waist high, so that I could see all of the family's belongings at a glance.

Against one wall four piles of clothes were neatly stacked. Next to them I saw three large plastic bags. Several shirts hung from the ceiling. Several pots hung from one wall. The only pieces of furniture were a fold-out, white plastic table and two green plastic chairs. There was no stove or fireplace for cooking. In one corner I saw a brown, paper bag containing charcoal.

Gia said, “Linda cooks once a day over a fire outside the house. She places three large stones on the ground and then the charcoal in the center. She places a pot on top of the stones.”

Ray said he was from Cotabato City, on the northwestern coast of Mindanao. He had come south to Davao City fifteen years previously, he added, looking for work. Today he and a business partner sold second-hand and third-hand shoes on the streets, most often on Roxas Boulevard. They had been selling shoes on the streets for five years. Previously, he had found work in Davao in construction.

The little girl rushed into the room and clung to the left leg of her father. Linda came inside the house, too. She was from a farm outside Davao City, she said. She and Ray and their children had been living in Isla Verde for seven years, she added.

"Typically, you won't find anything to eat here," said Linda. "I buy food whenever I can, and the family eats it immediately. If we don’t earn money one day, then we don’t eat that day or the next.”

Neither Ray nor Linda would answer directly when I asked them where the family members relieved themselves. Finally, Linda, with a wave of the hand, said, simply, speaking in English, "In the sea.” They used plastic bags and dumped the bags into the sea at night.

“Where are your other boys?” Gia asked.

“Nathan, the oldest, and Larry, the second oldest, are in school,” Linda said. “They go to Zonta Elementary School.”

“Can they read and write?” Gia asked. “The oldest one is learning quickly,” Linda said, “But the other one has trouble.”

I knew 75 percent of children in the Philippines completed elementary school, but the percentage of young people who completed a secondary school education was much lower. I assumed children from the slums always would drop out of school at higher rates than children from other neighborhoods. It was obvious.

Gia leaned over and spoke softly so the others could not hear. “I cannot stay any longer.”  I knew Gia was struggling. Ray and Linda’s life reminded her of her life after her father died. I told Gia to tell Linda to take the sick boy to the clinic and then to leave. I indicated to Linda we would return in two days to see if her son had gotten better. Gia gave Linda a 1,000-peso note, the equivalent of 25 dollars, and stepped outside. Following Gia outside the house to the spot where Catalino had been waiting, I was surprised, once again, by the brightness and the heat of the sun. I hesitated, thinking slowly and carefully.

I decided I could not detect any changes for the better among the residents of Davao City's barangays. The number of slum dwellers was rising. The ability of the local government to provide new housing and sanitation facilities for them was not.

I said to myself for a society to marginalize and to penalize a significant portion of its people because they are poor…. That is not right. More importantly, for any society, it’s not practical.

I felt an urgency which I had not felt before. I started walking rapidly to catch up with Gia and Catalino. I had to finish my job in Davao. Then I had to fly to Kuala Lumpur. Finally, I had to fly to Hanoi.