Parola fire—joy and sorrow

Commentary
By Denis Murphy

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Recently in Parola, Tondo, a fire driven by tornado-like winds destroyed 100 hollow-block houses in which an estimated 300 families lived. We walked a few days later in the blackened ruins. It looked as if we were moving through a prison block of fire-scorched cells. The alley, however, was alive with children playing, men rebuilding, and the banging of hammers on roofs of GI sheets.


There were tragic stories. A two-year-old girl was trapped in her house. The neighbors told us they could hear the little girl crying for help even over the roar of the wind and fire. The crying went on for some time. Young men tried to reach her, but couldn’t. Then the crying stopped, and hours later firemen carried out the small body.

There were happy stories. One-year-old Rafael Iscala was trapped on the upper floor of his house with his aunt. His mother watched helplessly from the alleyway and then two hands appeared at the window; it was the aunt holding the baby. After a few seconds of hesitation, the aunt dropped the child. Men from Oceanlink Trucking caught him 15 feet below.

We met Rafael later in the relief center. When the crowd of children there heard his story, they looked up at the little boy in his mother’s arms as if he were the world’s first baby astronaut just back from outer space. Rafael accepted the attention with great modesty and his thumb in his mouth.

The survivors we met were happy to be alive. Laurie Cantero, the mother of four young boys, was grateful: “At least I still have my boys.” The little girl died only a few meters away. We asked Fe Galaban, a grandmother who lived with three of her own children and five grandchildren in her house, if she still believed in God. She was surprised at the question. “Siyempre (of course)! I don’t blame God. God didn’t do this.” The neighbors call Aling Fe “Mama.” When the mothers work, she watches their children.

The people are generally not critical, but some questions should be asked. The government did a good job with relief work. There is a new evacuation center built near the Del Pan Sports Center where the people were able to go. There is more than enough food there. On the other hand, the men doing the repair work have to labor by themselves. If they have money or the ability to borrow, they take out a loan from the bumbay at the usual 5-6 interest rate. If a man or woman head of the household has no money, there is no repair work. We didn’t see any cooperative repair work. “Kanya-kanya,” Vicente Mendiola said. “That’s all there is.” If a man has male relatives, they will help, but the neighbors are busy with their own houses. If people leave their newly bought housing materials unwatched, these will be stolen by outsiders. Even the burned lumber and GI sheets recovered from the ruins of the fire are stolen.

The government can take advantage of such fires and disasters to reblock homes and subsidize house repair. If a small area were rehabilitated, it would be a model for the rest of a large area—for Parola, for example.

Nowadays, as much time is given to rehabilitation as to emergency relief. If we don’t move ahead, we drift and fall back. Disaster can be totally tragic, or it can lead to new and welcome initiatives.

Joseph Estrada and Vice President Jojo Binay were there to give food and money. Liberal Party people were not seen in the fire area, nor were priests or nuns. No one brought the people together to plan better ways of rebuilding, or to pray. It’s not too soon to talk of the future. Such talk gives hope and a purpose in the hard situation.

Ironically, the house where the fire began is neat and swept clear of all debris, while most of the houses are still full of rubble.

There were hundreds of little children in the new relief center. At 4 p.m. the loudspeaker announced there was “merienda” on the first floor for children, and suddenly the children stampeded through the corridors and down the stairs. Step out of the way or be trampled. The children were laughing: It was all a game.

Parola lies at the mouth of the Pasig River. There are approximately 12,000 families packed into some 10-12 hectares of land, and it has so far defied efforts to develop it. The land was proclaimed for the homes of the residents by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Recently, the mayor took steps to get land titled for the people. A workable plan is still needed.

We left Parola with mixed memories. The people are resilient and sensitive to the sorrow of others. Not all of them, however: There are hungry people and bad guys who steal from the victims. The children are unmatched anywhere. The government, the Church, the political parties and the NGOs must do more. They all gave relief but now development is needed, which is more difficult to organize. Can the government, the people and all other groups develop a plan that will improve the lives of all the poor of Parola? “Kanya-kanya” is not enough for people. They have to unite and cooperate with one another to establish their own influential place in this society.

We will remember the two-year-old girl and her cries for help. We will remember young Rafael falling calmly 15 feet with his thumb in his mouth. We will remember Fe Galaban, the grandmother who was surprised when she was asked if she still believed in God.

Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).

Want to know what to do about slum dwellers? Try listening to them

Poverty Matters Blog
Guardian.co.uk
The Filipino government wants to move half a million Manila slum dwellers back to the countryside. Yet they left for a reason

The Filipino government claims it would cost about a third of the national budget to rehouse Manila's slum dwellers. Photograph: Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images
If you have access to BBC output, I strongly recommend a programme and article about slums, aired on radio and television last week. You will be taken on a tour of a slum in Manila, learn about some of the people who live there, and hear what experts think about the future of slums.

Slums are without doubt a huge development issue. According to the programme, as many as a billion people live in them today, a number set to double by 2050. Manila is growing by 60 people an hour, making it the fastest growing city on the planet. In comparison, Indian cities are growing by about 40 people an hour, while London's rate is seven people an hour.

Anyone who has worked with people living in slums will recognise the vivacity and can-do attitude that pervades the programme (which is not to romanticise very difficult, dirty and often violent conditions).

Their programme offered many lessons, but I particularly heeded the one my colleague Claire Melamed constantly highlights – the importance of listening to poor people about what they want. It is unusual to get such a long look at the lives of slum dwellers from their own perspective.

The main issue is the insecurity of land – they have no right to be where they are. The Filipino government wants to move half a million slum dwellers back to the countryside.

But there are good reasons people have left the land they have lived on for generations to seek a better life in precarious wooden shacks next to rubbish tips. A combination of conflict, climate change (slum dwellers claim there are more typhoons and floods in rural areas) and chronic poverty makes life in the countryside unbearable. There are no jobs. Meanwhile, in the slum, we hear of people graduating from university and seeing real prospects for the next generation.

The only sustainable way to repopulate the countryside is to provide opportunities there. In the programme, we hear of guards being placed around evicted slums to prevent previous occupants returning. Rather than move people on, the slums can be slowly formalised, with public goods provided. This has happened in many cities. In others, the slums were just demolished.

There are always reasons to move people off their land, and usually "development", that most treacherous of terms, is one of them. But there is a rule I apply to these kinds of actions: if the solution prescribed by a politician or "philanthropist" also happens to be in their own private interest, be sceptical. (Which does not mean some solutions are not win-win, especially in the long term.)

Housing aside, it is the intangibles associated with a life built up over decades that are lost when people leave their land, whether in cities or countryside. Remove them to another part of the country and they are dependent on others, with no political voice or organisation.

The Filipino government estimates the cost of rehousing slum dwellers in Manila at about a third of the national budget; it is cheaper to ship them off to the countryside. This coming from a government that, the UNDP suggested in 2007, loses $2 billion of its budget to corruption annually. Those creaming off this money are the same hypocrites claiming it is too expensive to house poor people better.

Slum dwellers are organising themselves to defend against government aggression and what they believe is the threat of arson. "We will barricade, we will fight for our freedom and security of tenures," says one community leader.

Their fight has strong precedents. All over the world, as urbanisation has gathered pace, country people have arrived in cities. They have set up their shacks (black plastic bags strung up on sticks) and slowly converted them into more acceptable living quarters, buying a few bricks every month, volunteering at the school, pressuring the local council to provide running water. With the international media spotlight on them, they have a greater chance of success. Governments can get away with less than they used to now.

It is a hopeful story, but one curious aspect of humanity seems to be its ability to pull together in a crisis, only to fall apart when things become more comfortable. I remember a visit I made to families in the south of Bogota who had lived through the process of urbanisation. They looked back on that period of coping and difficulty with nostalgia. That was when there was a community, they said – not like now. Today, all the kids are out for themselves and drugs have become a problem. It was the struggle for better living conditions that brought them together.

Paul Mason, the reporter on the BBC programme, ended on a more optimistic note. Citing British slum history as a precedent, he suggested that the generation of kids sloshing around the wet slum may one day take what they have learned about organisation and cohesion into the wider world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/23/what-to-do-about-slum-dwellers

Do we have to learn to live with slums?

August 18, 2011

Last May, we accompanied BBC in Manila esteros. Here is the 15 minute film aired yesterday. Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC newsnight said, "Without the slum dwellers global mega cities could not function at all."
We are hoping that the government will build on site housing for the estero people using the Palafox housing designs

Pls. Click the Link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9566838.stm