The Color of Poverty
by Oro Plata
Homelessness is a universal problem. It affects not only the country belonging to the so-called "Third World '' but the highly industrialized/advance economy countries as well.
However, that sad realities must not be used as an excuse by the government to simply turn a blind eye on homeless people. In my country, the problem has been going on for several decades now.
As a college student in the '80s, I've done several immersions in the streets of Metro Manila for me to know the root cause of the problem and find the following underlying reason: Extreme poverty in the countryside.
The Philippine is an agricultural country and the vast majority of agricultural lands belongs to few individuals who in most cases belong to political clans (running both the local and national government) and big businessmen.
A hardworking farmer or tenant-farmer remain poor no matter how he tries to alleviate his condition because of the following:
1- Unequal sharing farm produce called "TERSIO" wherein the landlord gets 70% of the farm produced and the remaining 30% goes to the farmer. This oppressive system of sharing has been going on since time immemorial.
2-Low price for their farm produced and high priced farm inputs like fertilizers and other farm needs. To survive, the poor farmer had to borrow money from his landlord on high interest so that when the next harvest season came, the farmer's 30% goes to the debt payment and in many cases, they still have to pay more come the next harvest season. This condition resulted in a high illiteracy rate particularly in far-flung places in the country because instead of sending the children to school, the parents having no money to spend for schooling, the children, as early as seven years old are obliged to help their parents on the farm. When the children grow up unlettered many of them will try to seek "greener pasture" in the city only to find themselves as manual labourers in building constructions and other menial jobs with a salary not even enough to get a decent meal. Sooner, they will have their own family but because they don't have money to build a decent home, they will just build a makeshift shanty along river banks or any vacant public place in the metropolis
only to find out one day they are being demolished and become homeless. One particular story that broke my heart is the story of "Pedro" (the man in a red shirt with a cap) I meet him on January 21, 2019, at the seawall of Manila Baywalk according to him, at that time they are in their 9th month here in Manila
He is a tenant farmer from Isabela province. He told me that because of extreme poverty they are suffering, his wife took her own life one day leaving her two children ages 6 and 9 years old. Pedro decided to leave their place to forget the sad memories brought about by the death of his wife.
He then decided to come here to Manila hoping to find a job but ended up collecting recyclables and rubbish after failing to find one. While staying behind the seawall Pedro meets the woman (beside him in the photo) another "poverty escapee" from the Visayas region. They are now living together. Before the start of the ongoing Manila Bay rehabilitation project, I tried to look for him but I was told that they transferred in a grassy portion of a construction project in Pasay (another haven of homeless people) just across the GSIS building that housed the Philippine Senate.
I promise myself that I will visit the place one day soon.
"As a photographer, I really find it too difficult to choose the subject I wanted. I love to take photos of the poetic Manila Bay sunset, but cannot simply ignore the homeless people above and behind the sea wall. Call me a photographer with a conscience, a photographer without borders."
Oro Plata
