HELEN BASILI meets some residents of a recently demolished slum in the Philippines and finds their lives have changed for the worst.

It is a far cry from the pristine, palm-fringed beaches on the tourist brochures. In the slums of Manila, the outlook is so bleak and devoid of colour that you feel as if you are viewing the scene on a grainy, black and white film. Row after row of makeshift houses merge together in an unfathomable reality. At first glance, it is hard to believe that living conditions could get any worse than this. The residents, however, can tell you otherwise.

For the urban poor of Manila, the attachment they have to their homes is not any less because they are part of a slum. Hanging on to their hopes for a better job and a better life, and boosted by the strong sense of altruism found in these communities, the residents are reluctant to budge from their humble dwellings. But the homes of the poor are no longer safe. The government is attempting to ‘clean up’ the city and promote an atmosphere of modernity and progress and, as a result, Manila’s urban poor are being plagued by a frenzy of demolition.

Joseph Estrada was elected President of the Philippines in May 1998, after a campaign that focused heavily on the promise to be more responsive to the needs of the poor. The demolition of urban slums had started well before Estrada’s time. At the end of 1996 some 25052 families had been effected by demolition and were awaiting relocation. However, the Estrada government, despite its promises, has failed to alleviate the problem. It continues to demolish slum settlements but has been largely unsuccessful in finding adequate accommodation for those who have been left homeless. Meanwhile, high-rise buildings and commercial structures are erected at the eviction sites, which only benefit the wealthy elite.

On 22 May 1999, The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on the fate of thousands of people whose homes in Manila had been demolished the previous year. They had been relocated to a rural area with few employment prospects and were housed in an "a three-walled box shelter with no roofing, flooring, windows and toilet". One of the residents said that many children had died since the relocation, as a result of gastrointestinal diseases and malnutrition. The Inquirer also noted that another 43 000 families were about to be made homeless with the planned demolition of slum settlements in the Philippine cities of Davao and General Santos.

Until late last year, a slum settlement called Dabu-Dabu existed in the Pasay district of Manila. Located next to the massive Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP) overlooking Manila Bay, Dabu-Dabu had been home to some 500 families since 1988. Founded on the site of a garbage dump, the residents cleaned up the area and even developed facilities such as a day-care centre, chapel and basketball court. However the community that had developed at Dabu-Dabu came to a violent end on 19 November last year. At nine o’clock in the morning, a demolition squad rolled up to the settlement armed with M16’s and tear gas. The residents were prepared for a confrontation and, in a brave attempt to save their homes, formed a human barricade with some 200 men, women and children.

The demolition squad was formed from a coalition of five government agencies: the Metro Manila Development Authority, the Special Action Forces, the Special Weapons Action Team, the Local Mayors Action Complaint Unit and the Pasay Philippine National Police. They outnumbered the residents by three to one and the place that was once Dabu-Dabu was leveled to the ground. The demolition was so violent that four residents were killed and 20 wounded.

The residents of Dabu-Dabu had been threatened with eviction in the past, but what gave the authorities the incentive to carry out the task with such zeal was an ASEAN Informal Summit held in the CCP on November 28. The area had to be ‘cleaned up’ before the arrival of international guests. However, the ‘clean up’ was of a superficial nature only as many of the residents are now living in similar conditions in less prominent locations around Manila. Those who agreed to be relocated by the government have been placed in remote areas without basic infrastructure or services and with little chance of finding employment.

Dina San Juan ran a small sari-sari (variety) store from her home in Dabu Dabu. She still has scarring on her arms after being sprayed with tear gas by the demolition squad on November 19. Her house was burnt down and she lost everything she owned. San Juan’s grandson, then two months old, was even less fortunate. He has scarring on his face and has been suffering ongoing respiratory problems since the demolition.

San Juan has been separated from her family since they were uprooted from the place they called home. She says she must stay in the city so that she can earn money however the rest of her family has gone to stay with relatives in the countryside until they recover from the shock of the demolition. San Juan now lives in a new shanty settlement, hidden in a filthy, sewage-filled canal, along with 100 other families from Dabu-Dabu. It is located alongside Roxas Boulevard, an eight-lane highway that connects Metro Manila to the domestic and international airports, and is only two kilometres away from their old home.

Another former Dabu-Dabu resident, Job Garde Jr., has also moved to the new settlement and has been elected a community spokesman. He says that when they first relocated to Roxas Boulevard in December, the former residents of Dabu-Dabu camped in tents on the sidewalk but they were harassed by police on a daily basis: "[The police] told us to hide ourselves so that people do not see us," says Garde.

Having no choice but to obey this order, they decided to build huts in the adjacent canal, which had a fairly low water level at the time. The distance between the water level and the top of the canal is less than two metres so the huts they have built on wooden platforms are incredibly cramped - it is impossible for an adult to stand inside one. The residents have been forbidden to expand their living space: "The [Local Mayors Action Complaint Unit] members told us the other day to hide, that the roof of our house should not be seen by passers by," says Garde.

The huts have been built from a variety of wooden and plastic materials that the residents retrieved from garbage dumps as well as some tarpaulins donated by the church. Despite their tiny dimensions, a lack of toilets, showers and electricity and overwhelming exhaust fumes from Roxas Boulevard, the residents somehow manage to keep their huts neat and clean. Men work with saws, hammers and nails, repairing damage from the constantly fluctuating water levels and women squat in front of buckets of soapy water, washing clothes and children, or mopping the inside of their hut.

The residents seem to take pride in appearances and are industrious and hard-working. One resident, Daniel Reyes, lives in the canal with his three children and wife (who is pregnant with a fourth) and earns money by driving a pedicab, a bicycle with a small sidecar which can transport two people short distances. Jimboy Velasco has managed to set up a tiny sari-sari store in his hut and Dina San Juan hopes to be able to do the same.

Despite these efforts at survival, the settlement is still plagued by ill-health. Diarrhoea is endemic among the children and virtually all the residents suffer from colds and flues as a result of the traffic pollution. At night the area is swarming with mosquitoes and Garde says they fear an outbreak of malaria or dengue fever. The stench of the canal can be unbearable and, combined with the incessant noise from Roxas Boulevard, keeps the residents awake at night.

One man had a nervous breakdown soon after moving to the canal. "He became obsessed with [his fear of] demolition and was waking up and shouting in the middle of the night ‘enough, enough, enough’," says Garde. The man has since been confined in a psychiatric institution.

The experience of demolition has also lead to an immense fear of authority figures. Garde says that some members of the community, particularly children, have panic attacks at the sight of uniformed police or any recognisable government official.

The grief and insecurity residents feel over the loss of their homes at Dabu-Dabu is profound and their future at Roxas Boulevard is by no means certain: "We are waiting for the termination team. Every day there is fear that we might be demolished at any time. Our minds are not at rest, we are always alert," says Garde. He has good reason to express these sentiments. Plans are being made for the largest shopping mall in Asia to be built on the vacant land between the canal and Manila Bay. It is unlikely that the developers will want neighbours like these.

The Manila-based human rights group Karapatan, has filed a complaint to the Commission on Human Rights against the Pasay City Government over the demolition of Dabu-Dabu. Garde says that, so far, they have had no response. In the meantime they will continue to live in the canal, sustained by the hope that the government may eventually relocate them somewhere with the basic infrastructure and job opportunities that they have lived so long without.

"We will stay together despite the fact that we have faced enormous hardship. Still, the unity [among community members] prevails," says Garde. However the anger he feels over the injustices he has encountered is immense: "What do you call a society that has reduced you to a beggar and an eyesore? That is what has happened in the Philippines. It is society that has reduced us to this condition."

This article was first published by the Big Issue Australia.