Baseco, the land of no names.

After commuting via bus, jeepney, and tricycle, I arrived at the infamous place called Baseco in Tondo, Manila.  The big trucks, the crowd, even the way the shacks are placed are not foreign to me. It maybe my first time in Baseco, but it is not my first time to visit a crowded impoverished community like this.

Doesn’t matter if its the first time or the nth time, places like this will always be overwhelming.  It is something that one just cannot be immune to, no matter how many times one visits informal settler communities.

I saw half naked children playing on the side of the street oblivious to the dirt, pollution, and stench.  Mothers cooking their meals outside their humble abode.  Endless sari-sari stores selling junk food and drinks.  Gambling teenagers.  Shouting fathers.  And a sleeping dog with a cigarette in his mouth.

I trudged on a cement trail that probably witnessed countless evolving lives of the residents.  The mute witness of the routine of the people who relentlessly fight to live their lives the way they only know how…survive.

The trail of garbage also seemed endless, just as the problems of these people were.

As I walk pass them, I thought, “one has to get out of this place if one wants something right to happen to them” But who am I to say that what they have is not good? Why did I initially find it so bad? They have a home to go home to, friends to call upon, and families, though struggling, seem to make the best of what they have.

I have met families who have houses but cannot seem to buy the warmth it needed.  Fathers who’ve lost their sons in video games and drugs.  Mothers who fill the void of being needed by shopping useless gifts that their children take for granted.  How can one have everything they wanted and end up needing so much more than the impoverished family living in the squatter area?

They waved and smiled, and trustingly posed for the camera, never hesitating even if the one who is taking it is a stranger… They laugh at little things, get delighted at small gifts they find in the garbage along the shore, so easy is laughter to them, I noticed…They do not burden the stranger with any sorrow that is lodged between the armpits of their lives.

Before finding my way on this trail, the president found his way to the tribunal where he would recite his State of the Nation Address.  But his was prepared in red carpet with countless guards to protect him.  With people in their best dresses, better than the best Sunday dress the people in the slum area could ever have.  Women in beautiful gowns and elegant jewelry that people in Baseco would have to work for all their lives..and would die trying…before they could even own one…if they ever get to own one.

The president delivered his speech and life went on in the slums.

And I’m thinking to myself, how extravagant the preparations were made so that the president can deliver his less-than-an-hour speech.  How elegant the dresses the people who attended it. How tight the security, when these people live without having to lock their doors…because there is no door. 

Why there are no celebrations to show the courage the squatter folks have.  No dinners to commemorate how industrious and creative they live their lives amidst financial difficulties. But romanticizing poverty is not right either because nobody deserves an endless cycle of hunger and fatigue because the system that’s supposed to protect and help them is unfair. The ability to struggle and survive amidst corruption and systematic poverty is not to be applauded. They do not need to be celebrated. What they need is change.

Opportunities to be heard have been denied to them so many times because they were in this side of life where their voices, no matter loud, are not heard. The president’s speech means nothing to them because the programs does not reach them. One can always hope that this will not always be this way. Someone, hopefully, with enough power, will raise a question and the government will have to answer. Hopefully soon…sooner, I hope.