The poor and the dead: Philippines' strange bedfellows. Emmalyn Ramos' home has spectacular views of the Philippine capital's skyline, if you don't mind the human bones scattered outside her door.
The poor and the dead: Philippines' strange bedfellows
The poor and the dead have little choice but to mingle together in a graveyard in the northern Manila port district of Navotas, one of the world's most densely populated areas behind only a few Indian cities.
"We would like to live elsewhere," Ramos, a 20-year-old pregnant, unwed mother of two, told AFP as she fed her children inside a shanty made of plastic sheets, bamboo and bits of wood.
"But we were born here and we grew up here. I don't think we will be able to get out of here."
Ramos's tent is one of several pitched precariously atop a row of concrete tombs, themselves piled five-high, like shipping containers, at the crowded Navotas municipal cemetery.
Ramos and her extended family of 12, plus her jobless boyfriend, are one of about 600 families in the cemetery compound, a community ironically called Bagong Silang (Newborn).
The residents of the cemetery sleep, cook, eat, bathe, and wash clothes atop the tombs, and life can look grisly for an outsider.
There are no toilets or running water, garbage piles up among the tombs and the area is infested with cockroaches that particularly like to parade across the tombs at night.
Due to a lack of space in the cemetery, old bodies have to be eventually removed from the tombs and smelly, damp bones are scattered throughout the cemetery or in sacks that have been dumped on tombstones.
Jerry Doringo, spokesman for the Novotas city government, explained that local residents got free burial when they died, but the corpses could only stay inside the tombs for five years.
"After that they have to make way for the new arrivals," he said.
"We would like to live elsewhere," Ramos, a 20-year-old pregnant, unwed mother of two, told AFP as she fed her children inside a shanty made of plastic sheets, bamboo and bits of wood.
"But we were born here and we grew up here. I don't think we will be able to get out of here."
Ramos's tent is one of several pitched precariously atop a row of concrete tombs, themselves piled five-high, like shipping containers, at the crowded Navotas municipal cemetery.
Ramos and her extended family of 12, plus her jobless boyfriend, are one of about 600 families in the cemetery compound, a community ironically called Bagong Silang (Newborn).
The residents of the cemetery sleep, cook, eat, bathe, and wash clothes atop the tombs, and life can look grisly for an outsider.
There are no toilets or running water, garbage piles up among the tombs and the area is infested with cockroaches that particularly like to parade across the tombs at night.
Due to a lack of space in the cemetery, old bodies have to be eventually removed from the tombs and smelly, damp bones are scattered throughout the cemetery or in sacks that have been dumped on tombstones.
Jerry Doringo, spokesman for the Novotas city government, explained that local residents got free burial when they died, but the corpses could only stay inside the tombs for five years.
"After that they have to make way for the new arrivals," he said.
Life for the cemetery's residents, however, is not completely grim.
At sundown, bare-chested men play basketball, karaoke echoes past the tombstones and children amuse themselves by climbing up the tomb decks or flying kites.
"Sometimes they play with the skulls," Ramos said of her children.
And while she said there were no ghosts in the graveyard, her younger brother, 16-year-old high school student Marcelo, insisted with a smile that there were.
"There's nothing to worry about! If a ghost comes, we just swear at it," he said.
Marcelo said that, aside from ghosts, the community also at times had to deal with "aswang", a witch-like woman of local folklore who grows bat wings at night and detaches her upper body to go and suck the blood of sleeping humans.
"Sometimes there are aswang... we've had aswang here before. One bit my niece," he said.
However, laughing and smiling, he said his niece recovered from the witch's bite and was living a healthy life.
In a nation where a third of the population live on a dollar a day or less, millions of Manila's poor stay in sprawling shantytowns, their flimsy houses sitting on swamps, under bridges, and atop open sewers.
Doringo pointed out that Novotas was not the only city with a cemetery full of squatters.
He said the city government has bought a lot south of Manila that would relieve Navotas of some of its squatter problems, but he conceded its facilities were not be enough for all of Bagong Silang's current residents.
Also, the cemetery dwellers would prefer to live among the tombstones than in an area further away from the port where employment, albeit low-paying, was much harder to find.
Grade-school teacher Juliet Verzosa said many of the people living in the cemetery were poorly educated migrants from the island of Samar, one of the country's poorest areas.
They work as porters at the Navotas port or public market, take other odd jobs, or fish using small canoes, said Verzosa, who lives outside the cemetery but has been helping its residents for more than 15 years.
On the day AFP visited, grieving housewife Rosita Pontanes lit a candle in front of a deck of tombs that contained the remains of her mother, interred earlier that day.
Pontanes, a Roman Catholic like most Filipinos, told AFP she did not resent the seeming desecration of the dead by the squatters.
"She (her mother) will understand," said Pontanes, who lives outside of the cemetery. "They deserve our pity as well. They have no place else to go."
She was more concerned about her mother's remains, which she knew would eventually be dug up. ( msn.com )
At sundown, bare-chested men play basketball, karaoke echoes past the tombstones and children amuse themselves by climbing up the tomb decks or flying kites.
"Sometimes they play with the skulls," Ramos said of her children.
And while she said there were no ghosts in the graveyard, her younger brother, 16-year-old high school student Marcelo, insisted with a smile that there were.
"There's nothing to worry about! If a ghost comes, we just swear at it," he said.
Marcelo said that, aside from ghosts, the community also at times had to deal with "aswang", a witch-like woman of local folklore who grows bat wings at night and detaches her upper body to go and suck the blood of sleeping humans.
"Sometimes there are aswang... we've had aswang here before. One bit my niece," he said.
However, laughing and smiling, he said his niece recovered from the witch's bite and was living a healthy life.
In a nation where a third of the population live on a dollar a day or less, millions of Manila's poor stay in sprawling shantytowns, their flimsy houses sitting on swamps, under bridges, and atop open sewers.
Doringo pointed out that Novotas was not the only city with a cemetery full of squatters.
He said the city government has bought a lot south of Manila that would relieve Navotas of some of its squatter problems, but he conceded its facilities were not be enough for all of Bagong Silang's current residents.
Also, the cemetery dwellers would prefer to live among the tombstones than in an area further away from the port where employment, albeit low-paying, was much harder to find.
Grade-school teacher Juliet Verzosa said many of the people living in the cemetery were poorly educated migrants from the island of Samar, one of the country's poorest areas.
They work as porters at the Navotas port or public market, take other odd jobs, or fish using small canoes, said Verzosa, who lives outside the cemetery but has been helping its residents for more than 15 years.
On the day AFP visited, grieving housewife Rosita Pontanes lit a candle in front of a deck of tombs that contained the remains of her mother, interred earlier that day.
Pontanes, a Roman Catholic like most Filipinos, told AFP she did not resent the seeming desecration of the dead by the squatters.
"She (her mother) will understand," said Pontanes, who lives outside of the cemetery. "They deserve our pity as well. They have no place else to go."
She was more concerned about her mother's remains, which she knew would eventually be dug up. ( msn.com )
Other Article's
Ten mysteries of the mindTen mysteries of the mind. From sweet dreams to phantom pains, the brain is a befuddling place. Much of what we don't understand about being human is simply in our heads. The brain is a befuddling organ, as are the very questions of life and death, ... - Islamic nations want treaty to protect faith symbolsIslamic nations want treaty to protect faith symbols. Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbol ...
- The secret to good introductionsThe secret to good introductions. As a congenital connector, I make introductions all the time. Usually I have good results. I've had an uncountable number of successful career matches and even ignited a few romances (one of which resulted in a stro ...
- Preparing for Your 2010 Job SearchPreparing for Your 2010 Job Search. The good news: You have a job. The bad news: You'd like to find a new one, and the current state of the economy has undermined your efforts.You don't have to wait out the storm. You can take steps to prepare for y ...
- Dating dealbreaker or dealmaker?Dating dealbreaker or dealmaker?-- I have said and/or done the wrong thing so many times that it's truly the eighth wonder of the world that I ever managed to trick anyone into dating me more than once.Don't panic, some dating faux pas can be dealma ...
- Schoolboy, 11, ageing at five times the normal speed after becoming only boy in the world with genetic conditionSchoolboy, 11, ageing at five times the normal speed after becoming only boy in the world with genetic condition. He skateboards, swims, rides his bike and climbs trees like any other 11-year-old boy.But Harry Crowther's body is ageing five times fa ...
- Where hope never diesWhere hope never dies - Camp Hope families wait in Chile's Atacama Desert for trapped miners - As the 33 miners trapped by in a Chilean mine come to terms with their situation, Philip Sherwell travels to the north of Chile and finds a miraculous sto ...
- KH Abdurrahman Wahid ( Gus Dur ) Passed AwayThe first democratically elected president of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, died in hospital last night. He was 69. Mr Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, was practically blind, diabetic and had suffered several strokes."Gus Dur just passed away," sa ...
- Question to yourselfQuestion to yourself. So What's Next?. Sometimes this is the most important question to ask yourself. If you're in business for any length of time, you will experience three very distinct environments in which the most valuable question you can ask ...
- The Amazing Dracula TherapyThe Amazing Dracula Therapy. They call it 'Dracula Therapy', and if that isn't enough to freak you out, it involves having your face injected with your own blood. But S3 Therapy is the hottest news in anti-ageing right now. The name is short for Sti ...
- Why some single women just need to shut up Why some single women just need to shut up -- In a recent column on the Huffington Post, "Why I'm Single," writer Lea Lane lists all the reasons that she's still single. Why? So she can send the URL to all the nosy, possibly well-meaning busy-bod ...
- Parenting ResolutionsParenting Resolutions. It’s that time again, when everyone uses the excuse of a new year to forgive themselves for the people they’ve been for the past twelve months, and to make a list of miraculous changes that will somehow transform them the seco ...
- Istana Surga Di Penjara ArthalytaIstana Surga Di Penjara Arthalyta. Arthalyta Suryani dipenjara. Tapi wanita yang terlibat penyuapan jaksa Urip Tri Gunawan itu bisa keluar suka-suka dan menikmati fasilitas sekelas hotel bintang lima. Satuan tugas (satgas) ‘Pemberantasan Mafia Hukum ...
- Elmo Gets a Beat-DownElmo Gets a Beat-Down. Did Elmo have it coming, or are we a naturally violent species?. One of the most enlightening aspects of parenting is getting to observe humans before they’ve grown up and the world has stuck its corrupt claws into them. Even ...
- An invisible threat to home valuesAn invisible threat to home values. If you're living in or hunting for a house in an attractive neighborhood, take a closer look. If other folks are facing foreclosure, you'll pay the price in lost property value.A convenient location, good schools, ...
No comments:
Post a Comment