When I think of real poverty, anywhere in the world, there are a few places that immediately come to mind. Some of them I never visited, such as some of the poorest countries in Africa, others I have seen but not really explored much, such as slums in Indian cities. Then there is poverty that is easy to observe simply by visiting one of the popular South East Asian countries – the Philippines.
My trip to Cebu back in 2014 was my first of several to that country, and simply by strolling around Cebu City, you observe it often and everywhere. Children sleeping in the streets. Shirtless men sitting by the waterfront. Barefoot women in rugged clothing begging or collecting rubbish. And that is before you even visit the real slums, where people live in cardboard or plywood shacks that get blown away each year by even a modest typhoon.
All that is a part of the experience of the Philippines, the country of contrasts more so than others in South East Asia, where the Singapore-like ritz neighbours vast barangays, or communities, of people who could never afford even a tote bag from a Makati boutique.
I’ve walked around quite a few Filipino slums, and one thing that always amazes me is that most people living there still manage to remain positive and laugh, with their bottles of cheap beer and numerous kids playing around. But the true sense of poverty, to me, is despair, not laughter. So when I walked the streets of Danao City, about an hour away from Cebu, and saw this woman standing in a garbage-littered street by the iron bars of a food kiosk, holding a baby, I sensed exactly that. The knowledge that her and most likely, her child (or perhaps grandchild) will not have it any easier in the years to come, providing they’ll survive.
I, for one, really hope I was wrong about it.