Philippine Trip - Episode 4

After this “exciting” mountain top adventure that left an indelible scare on my psyche, we ate lunch and then returned to Manila. That last sentence, by the way, was written for effect. No. It was not a negative experience at all. It is a cherished memory that I will savor for the rest of my life. In fact, if I go back to the Philippines, it would be such a joy to reconnect with those delightful mountain people. Perhaps, I would forgo the trip down the mountain on a horse.

We had made arrangements to stay at the Navigator headquarters in Quezon City which is adjacent to Manila. How inviting and delightful it was to spread out on a bed and mattress after being denied of such luxuries for four or five days. I slept until noon on Tuesday. The swelling in my leg seemed to have receded a bit after elevating it for 14 hours.

We joined Pastor Ramil Tuesday afternoon in Tondo Manila which is the poorest area of Manila. Manila has a population of 1,700,000, which is divided into six districts. Tondo is the largest district with a population of 650,000 which represents over one third of Manila. Pastor Ramil lives and ministers in the poorest area of Tondo. He also ministers at the garbage dump at Pagutay, Manila.

Words are so inadequate to begin to convey the primitive, unsanitary, poverty-stricken living conditions in Tondo. We walked through the narrow streets in the area where the pastor lives. On each side were crude shacks attached one to another. During this time of the year their “homes” are flooded with twelve inches of water from 9:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m. And it’s not clean water. It’s basically sewage water. There are open sewers that go into a narrow river that runs through the village and then into Manila Bay. When the high tide comes in the river overflows and floods their dwellings. What a depressing and heart wrenching experience this was. Such living conditions bring sickness. Many residents suffer skin lesions from contact with the diseased water. Dysentery and tuberculosis are prevalent.

The garbage dump in Paytay Manila where Pastor Ramil ministers weekly is an unseemly, reprehensible sight. It covers 24 acres rising 130 feet above the valley floor. Thousands of people live on or around this garbage-mountain. Just after 4:00 a.m. the first trucks start to arrive carrying their precious cargo. Over the next seventeen hours 430 garbage trucks will deposit an estimated 1200 tones of garbage. The people living at this site rummage through each truckload of garbage. It is their only source of income. They consider themselves lucky if they make two or three dollars a day for their efforts.

To be continued…