The Philippines Neighborhoods
May 23, 2008 - 5,414 views
As opposed to the tacky homes some have built, there is a huge gap between the Philippines homes we see below and the mansions and villas advertised by realters or travel agencies. If you want to get a taste of how Philippinos live, here is what you’ll expect to find in many corners of the country.
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13 Responses to “The Philippines Neighborhoods”
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its a tad depressing to see this in real life. especially during the rainy seasons. i felt so bad when i visited
This is hardly even the worse, I have seen families of 5 living in shacks not much bigger than a dog house.
I felt to ashamed to take pictures of them though…..
It’s sad but it’s true. Being a Filipino, I’d say this is how majority of us live. Below poverty line.
its a shame really im a filipino and i lived here in england now and i also experienced to lived in an area such like that but those people who lives there are true people they care to each other they still lived happily even though they dont have enough money to buy foods.those pictures that you saw are those people who lives below poverty line. to be honest living with these people made me strong and strived hard to finish my study and became a stabled family man. being poor is not an excused in my honest opinion all you have to do is work hard to achieved your goals in life.
While you could see this kind of neighborhoods here it does not mean that this is the predominant type of Filipino neighborhood.
To Pedro Penduko:
Yeah you better be ashamed…your grammar is wrong numbnut!
To Juan Dela Cruz:
Yeah, you better be ashamed… you read his post and saw nothing except incorrect grammar. Shame…
It’s true that a lot of Filipino homes are like these now. I’m just a little bit offended by home these photos are posted here like eccentricities. If you are going to blog about it, at least be responsible and sensitive enough. Thank you.
The Philippines also has much worse than this. On the other hand there are areas that are wealthy and quite spectacular. Every country has extreme slums but seeing this is sad and depicts a very harsh reality.
I am offended by these photos of my home country! Not all Filipinos live like this! There are many well to do families in the Philippines! The pictures need to reflect that!
To Monica:
I don’t believe the author is telling us that all Filipinos live like that. He/she is just showing another side of the coin.
I’m not offended at all. Since this isn’t a lie, not even close to being one. We should all just face reality. While the rich are very, very rich and getting wealthier by the minute…the poor are being flushed down the cesspool.
Pictures like these should be strong enough to put some sense and practicality in us.
I spent a month in the Philippines and I saw a lot of homes like this. My thoughts are that Filipinos should not be ashamed by these photos. This is simply reality for many people. If anyone should feel ashamed, it should be all people who live far beyond their means and turn their backs on the hard lives that many people have all around the world.
I will say this about the many people I met who lived like this — they have something that I see rarely back home in Canada — a true sense of family. The vast majority of Cebuanos that I met were warm, friendly, and they opened their homes to me, no matter how little they had to offer. I was humbled by this and it changed my perspective about life in so many ways.
Life in the Philippines is difficult for millions of people, but the spirit and generosity demonstrated to me says more about them as people than what kind of simple existence they lead. I wish that I could help everyone in some way, but in reality I can only give them my respect and admiration for being able to smile and open their homes to a complete stranger who they treated like an honoured guest. They are truly a remarkable and proud and strong people.
Seeing these houses brings back memories when we were homeless too. Our house looked like one of those shacks. After years of working as a dental assistant abroad, my mom returned home only to find that all her hard earned money had been wasted away by her relatives (the ones i warned her about, but that is in the past now). When the money she saved ran out after many unsuccessful business ventures again with her “relatives”, we were left with no place to stay. I was in college then in Manila. I wanted to quit school for a while to help her but she would not take any of it. She wanted me to be the first in our family to graduate from a respectable college.
Through a local government program,. we were able to get rights over a piece of land about 50 square meters. The location was far from the town center. The conditions were quite “inconvenient”. There was no plumbing, no electricity, the road going to and from the place was not lighted and had tall cogon grass growing on both sides of the road. No one would hear you scream.
Since we did not have much money, my mom took it upon herself to put up a dwelling from scrap materials, wherever she may find them. One of the conditions of the government program was that you have to physically occupy and erect a dwelling on the land. I wanted to quit school but my mom would have none of it, she just wanted me to finish school.
With the help of my uncle and some friends, they were able to put up the foundation of the “house” using 4 sturdy pieces of lumber and a couple of scrap plywood and GI sheets. Yes, our house looked like those houses in the pictures.
For now our fortunes have gone for the better. We still live in the same lot but our house has been upgraded to more sturdier materials. My mom put up a small store and did some errands for her friends. She found part time work as a dental assistant. I got to graduate from college and got a job as a game master =)
Why do we still stay in that community even if we now have the means to move out?
Maybe a sense of sentimentality, that we live in a house that we built with out own hands (yes, years of high school shop class finally payed off)
Maybe to remind us where we have been through and how blessed we have been.
Maybe to be able to help those who would want to help themselves, because in our hour of need those who helped us were our true friends here and abroad.
I was born with a silver spoon, grew up upper middle class, went through college as a pauper, getting busy moving up.
Moving forward, looking back.