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FIRE STORM IN MANILA

Dante's Inferno is a thought that forces itself onto the mind of the onlooker. Forlorn among a landscape of blackened pilings of former houses a woman squats in a soggy swamp of ashes and debris. With a metal rod she digs into layer after layer of debris, garbage and twisted leftovers of what once was a home where people slept, ate, fought and loved.

"What are you looking for?"

Under a red scarf wrought artfully around a once pretty face a shy pair of eyes looks tentatively at the questioner, only to focus quickly again on the ground in front of her.

"I look for nails, for metal. Maybe there is a hammer, or a hacksaw left over, in here." Her hands rake slowly through the vile concoction that the searing flames had left behind. Next to her a small, red bucket rests half-filled with the treasures she collected through the morning: Nails, wires, rusted pieces of Rebar, unidentifiable metal bits of former use.

"What will you do with it?"

She continues digging here and there, somewhat aimlessly, and responds in a soft voice, barely audible: "I will sell it."

"In one day, how much will you make?"

"Maybe 50 Pesos, maybe less." That's less than one Dollar.

"How about your husband, doesn't he work?" "He is sick. He is disabled."

At this point a young boy snuggles up to her, rests his sooty face against her shoulder and smiles innocently into the camera. The woman still doesn't look up, just fiddles with some scrap, so as if to kill the time until the foreigner leaves again.

She is forty years old, has seven children, and has lived here in Baseco for ten years. She came from the countryside, in one of these beautiful, tropical islands Western tourists dream about. She came in search of a better life, after a life of hunger and poverty, in the hope to give her children an education. It never happened quite that way. Whenever things started to look up, another blow through her back. A strong body is all that counts here, where education never was affordable. One injury, one disease, and all the dreams came to an end.

"Where is your home?"

"There, in Block 14". She turns and waves her arm at the indistinguishable wasteland of ashes and burned timber. "Somewhere there, it was." For a moment a glimpse of helplessness betrays her situation before she focuses again on the task at hand.

More children come hurrying through the swampy maze. A foreigner is an event one doesn't see every day, and excitement sparkles in their eyes. Chatter and laughing fills the fetid air, and the woman seems to get yet smaller, as if she would like to sink into the ground.

That's life in Baseco, Tondo, Manila, not far from the financial center and the historic Intramuros, the old heart of the Spanish Asian Empire.

50,000 people live in this community. They came from all parts of the Philippines in search of a better life, that the Province couldn't provide. They build their home from scraps, recycled material mostly. They formed their own administration, provided their own communal services. They all work hard, mostly laborers, market vendors, drivers and stevedores. They all had hopes and tried so hard.

Then, on January 11, 2004, a kerosene lamp tumbled over in one living room. Flames spread, and soon the whole house was engulfed. Then the fire jumped to next one, and the next. Then the inferno raged for 9 hours, consuming block by block. Fire trucks raced to the site, but couldn't enter the narrow alleyways and catwalks of this shantytown. By morning 2,500 structures were destroyed, and 25,000 people were without a home, and without possessions.

"We just grabbed whatever we could", explains Reynaldo, "The flames came too fast. Many people just jumped into the river with their shirt on their backs."

"I lost my house", he says, "my pigs, my clothes, my appliances, my kitchen things, I lost everything." As he talks, a handsome, gentle man in his early thirties, beads of sweat form on his face, and his voice grows strained. He moves restlessly form foot to foot, yet stands still in place, as if chained down to this hellish ground. "I am depressed", he utters with great effort, "I can't explain my feelings." He seems to be close to tears, but his eyes stay dry, as if burned by this great fire.

"Children are our greatest treasure", explains Ray, the councilman. "They are our future. For most families they are the only thing they could save."

Like ravens in a winter meadow, so scurry flocks of children through the debris. Sometimes alone, but often in small groups, they pound, dig, sift and break through what is left, to find anything of value to bring home to their families. They make the difference between a meal or none.

At age three Karrai holds charred treasures in her tiny hands: Two burned rubber wheels from some toy. Her sister, all of 5 years old, has already filled a plastic bag halfway with rusted nails.

She doesn't want to talk. She bends her almond-eyed beautiful child's face so close to the ground that it nearly disappears. She knows her state, she is aware of the hell around her, and her own poverty and shabbiness. Karrai, however, still talks freely.

"We make 20 Pesos", she accounts proudly in her small, tiny voice. "We will sell it all." Then she topples over into the dirt, gets a hold of herself, and looks seriously at the strange intruders, trying to read their intentions. A large scar dissects her baby face, stitched in a railroad pattern only to accent the blemish. Greenish snot oozes out of her nostrils. Yet, her eyes speak of an older age. They seem to reflect the scarred, blackened landscape all around her. Hope and innocence seem to loose out to awareness and suspicion.

"Are you hungry?"

She just nods in earnest, and her lips purse into that sweet cupid's bow, that only the very young muster to display. She doesn't ask for anything, doesn't expect anything. She just fumbles with those two wheels, pokes nails into the center, as if she could create a new toy. Yet, she knows, she will have to surrender her nails, and her wheels.

"Will your dad be proud of you?"

They look down again, both of the girls. Then suddenly the little one looks up at the towering adults. "He was mad with us!"

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Were you naughty?"

She shakes her head and looks down again into the jumble of garbage and ashes in front of her. Her chubby little hands dig again. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe she can do better today.

The city has a plan. Already the bulldozers clank through the soggy ground by Manila's harbor and deposit layer and layer of heavy fill onto the remnants of a former life.

"We will give them the building material for a house, after we fill it all in." So explains Tess Lumactad, the head of that community, as her fingers trace the neat blocks of the new Baseco along the blueprint. "They will then built their own houses according to our plan, neighbor helping neighbor. We will have wide roads for the fire trucks, and this will never happen again."

"We have accepted Baseco as part of Manila", declares the Mayor of Manila, "we will give them land and title for free, to the legitimate residents of this community. We have accepted responsibility for these people. They are not just squatters. We will do whatever we can with the limited funds of our city, but we welcome any help of our friends in other countries."

A few blocks over a small, white coffin rests under a makeshift tent of blue tarpaulin. Through the window in the lid a ghostly, powdered, pale face looks inward into eternity, framed by a stiff white barong and a laced pillow, so white in such a black surrounding.

"My son", explains the father, 7 years old. He died of pneumonia." His wife holds the youngest tightly in her arms, as if some evil force may pull him away as well. Her face attests to the last two days of mother's agony.

"We count him as one of the fire victims", contemplates Ray, the councilman. "This is the cold time of the year, and more will die from exposure. They have no home."

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6/11/04 UPDATE-Firestorm in Manila

Five months have passed since the disaster in Tondo, and enormous changes have taken place. The scars of the great fire have nearly completely disappeared, and like a phoenix out of the ashes, a beautiful village arose with gardens and flowers, where before a swampy abyss of trash and debris festered in the tidal swamps of the Pasig River.

Gawad Kalinga and Habitat for Humanity have build nearly 100 homes with another 100 still under construction. The Gawad homes are built with voluntary labor of the future owners, working on each other’s homes. Continuous training courses in life skills and self improvement reinforce community bonds.

Habitat’s homes will have to be paid for with future small contributions by the new owners, fostering a sense of responsibility.

The one given priority under the City’s program are former registered owners, with the most needy ones first in line. The joy and pride of these new owners is palpable, but still thousands are left waiting. Particularly sad are the cases of former renters, who will have to wait for a long time, and still live in squalid shacks.

Beyond giving financial aid to the victims Medicorps prepares a television documentary on the plight of these resilient people, who under subhuman condition preserve their dignity and concentrate on the education of their children.

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