I lived in the Philippines for around 4 1/2 years and have made many friends there. Originally I went to the Philippines to document the lives of “The Street Children of the Philippines”, I shot allot of video and thousands of photos. I interviewed hundreds of street children trying to understand their stories and how they ended up on the streets. In my travels to many different cities I learned allot about Filipino culture and met many different people on different social scales.
On this day I traveled to a place called Longos, Zapote V Bacoor Cavite Philippines, this kind of community is common in the Philippines. The actual land that these people created this community on was purchased by a Philippines Senator, much of this community was created by squatters, when people have no where to go they will build houses out of anything they can find and most of the time it is on someone else’s land. As you will see as I walk you thru this community the houses are mostly all connected with only a walking path, these communities start out with a few houses and as people hit hard times with no where to go it begins to grow into what I am about to walk you thru today.
So walk with me as I take you inside of this Filipino community, I filmed this video myself and it is a MFN News exclusive, it has never been seen by the outside world before today. There are 5 videos total in this documentary, all the 5 videos are included in this story and are listed in order 1 thru 5.
A Philippines Squatters Life: Walk with me through this community now.
I continue to walk thru the maze of very tight ally’s heading every direction. Passing children heading to school, their the lucky ones, not everyone here can afford to go to school. more dark and tight ally’s as we continue to walk and document this area. After speaking to the locals I learned that the senator who purchased this land this community was setting on he has plans to demolish this whole community and turn it into a industrial complex. I am not sure what will happen to these people their time squatting here on this land maybe coming to an end, it is hard to imagine how the senator plans to relocated all these people there are literally thousands of people living here. The Senator does own the land and the people are squatting on his land so its difficult to blame the Senator but if he does run these people off his land and bulldoze all these structures down there will be thousands of people with nowhere to go. I can’t help but sympathize with both sides. I exit this side of community and reenter in a different location in next video.
more dark and tight ally’s. Earlier I mentioned how some people here dispose their trash, in this video I walk you down the backside of the community where the people dump their trash. There is a lake in the short distance that is covered up with trash. The trash so deep that in places you cannot see the water, trash spewed across the ground, this is a very contagious place full of disease and bacteria’s, cannot be good to breathe this everyday. Some people raising chickens in this infected area that people will eventually eat. Electricity is a commodity here those lucky enough to have cannot afford to use it, no running water in most of these houses. People here wash out of a 5 gallon bucket, wash their clothes similarly and clothes are hanging up everywhere to dry. after walking for about 4 or 5 hours around this community I have concluded that this place is the largest squatters area in the Philippines that I have visited so far and I have walked thru many here in the Philippines.
I have visited other water town communities that are built over the water. This place has a working fairy boat to carry people from their water town part of this community to the land part of this community. Quite amazing to have actually seen this. As you can see on display here is how people have collected scraps and build themselves a home on the water, here it is easy to see just how resourceful and creative these people are. I think it is important for people today who have never known anything but the luxuries of living in the western developed countries to see just how fortunate they are. Most people could not survive in this kind of environment and that is why I have a lot of respect for these people to be able to survive in a place where very few people could. I am certain anyone who lives here would love to trade places with you but even with all the poverty I am always greeted with smiles.