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Cris’s story

January 21, 2008 on 8:17 pm | In Uncategorized |

Cris lives in Navatos, which is part of the great urban spread called Manila. He’s street-smart and also intelligent; he was an honour student at high school and his academic trophies are still displayed proudly in his home even though he is 24 years old now (yes I know he looks about 16 but I assure you he is really 24).

Cris has three sisters and four brothers and a bewildering collection of aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews and assorted other family whom I have not even tried to keep track of. That’s a niece in the picture. He was born and grew up in Navatos and lived there until he got the kind of work I described in an earlier post, which he does from his employer’s studio in Angeles. Like all Filipinos he needs to be surrounded by his family so he travels regularly between Manila and Angeles (about a two hour trip). You can get a comfortable air-conditioned bus with aircraft-style seats or a non-air-conditioned bus with hard bench seats designed for midgets. I’ve travelled in both; I will never catch the crappy one again unless my life is in danger. Cris catches it routinely because it’s cheaper (to be fair, he’s only about 5′3″ so he can sit in the seats without suffering the torture that I did).

Cris’s mother also works … she sells water door to door. Price is two pesos a litre - that’s about six cents. If she sells 10 litres she makes a whole 57 cents. She has to carry the water of course, and 10 litres weighs a bit. She and Cris are the only two in the family with any regular income. Here’s the neighbourhood … it’s what’s known as a squatters’ area.

The house is a series of small rooms that must be unbearable in summer. Cooking is done in the tiny front area immediately adjacent to the street, on an open fire. Electricity comes from the house next door via an extension cord.

I have no idea how these people survive but they are all very clean and take pride in their appearance and share a lot of down-to-earth good humour. They adore their children and nobody goes hungry, although the diet is not good (rice and vegetables and rice and occasional fish and extra rice). One thing that struck me was the poor state of the people’s teeth. Whatever the reason, it’s rare for a Filipino over the age of about 30 to have all their teeth.

Some people might ask why they don’t get off their butts and find work. It’s a reasonable question but it misconceives the nature of this society. There are few jobs; any large organisation limits hiring to college graduates even for unskilled work so the millions of very poor have few opportunities. Many people have various side projects but there is so little money in the neighbourhood that the rewards are negligible. You could be the smartest operator in the block but you can’t get blood from a stone. Remarkably, the crime rate appears to be little different to what you might expect in any Australian city. Certainly I never felt any nervousness or the need to keep my hand on my wallet although I’m sure it would be stupid to go wandering around after dark by yourself.

Strangely enough I didn’t feel any sense of despair or hopelessness after visiting these people. They are reasonably contented, they derive great happiness from the simple joys of family life, and they still have hope of a better life for their children. Indeed the only times I have felt seriously awkward in dealing with Cris’s family is when they have asked me for help in coming to Australia to work and I have had to explain that it is not possible. Yes I would love a maid and a houseboy for $50 a week plus board , which is a lot of money for these people, but under even WorkChoices it’s not allowed … something that’s hard to explain to people who have no way of grasping things like a minimum wage or OH&S laws.

I guess sooner or later some transnational companies will decide to shift manufacturing operations to the Philippines and the people will break out of the poverty cycle, albeit at tremendous social cost, as has happened in other Third World countries. In the mean time it’s hard to know what to suggest apart from individual acts of sharing. There are 10 million people in Metro Manila, most in slums like these … it’s not really practical to teach them to catch fish or grow mangoes or make macramé knick-knacks for tourists. Compared to Rex and his family, who I talked about in my last post, these people are the truly poor.

I’ve helped Cris get his own computer at his mother’s home and he’s going to teach his brothers and sisters and sundry other relatives how to use it. I don’t know if it will do any good but it might; at least they’ll have a basic skill that they will need if jobs ever become available. And I can talk to them often on web cam and show them that they are not forgotten by Teh West, which might do some good, to hell if I know.

Doing nothing however is inconceivable.