May 25, 2010
Along the winding pathways in Payatas, a major urban-poor community on Manila's outskirts, election signs are plastered to the walls of makeshift homes, electricity wires rest in ruff hanging bundles, weaving down a steep hill, looking out towards the gleaming office towers of downtown Manila.
The thousands of urban poor in Payatas are among the most marginalized in the Philippines, a community constructed on scavenging, metal sheet shacks, one-storey brick homes and junk shops, clinging to a steep hillside, resting just beyond Manila's main trash site. Thousands of tonnes of garbage are dumped each year in Payatas, creating a trash mountain that has become the engine to the neighbourhood economy, as many locals scavenge and sort garbage, selling recyclables or scrap metals for a few coins.
As an example of life of the 13 million urban poor in the Philippines, the extreme living conditions in Payatas reflect a broader reality in a country where millions of families do not have access to safe drinking water, quality healthcare or education; these millions represent a flipside to sharp figures of economic growth in the Philippines often projected in headlines of business newspapers globally.
More at: http://rabble.ca/news/2010/05/philippine-elections-people-power-rising-payatas
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