Slum problem as Philippines braces for more floods focus 06/26/2010

Slum problem as Philippines braces for more floods

focus 06/26/2010 MANILA — Hundreds of thousands of slum dwellers remain living in flood-prone areas of the Philippine capital as the rainy season builds despite pledges to move them after a barrage of deadly storms last year. A month into the tropical nation’s annual rainy season, entire communities that were hit hard by the disasters that killed about 1,000 persons are vigorously resisting government efforts to move them to safer places. At the Arenda estate, a 200-hectare (494-acre) swamp in eastern Manila, the holdouts prefer to park dugout boats on their yards, ready to jump in with their meagre belongings should the floods return. “The surroundings might be miserable, but we don’t have to pay rent,” Elvie Edaos, an unwed 52-year-old mother-of-four who barely earns a living by making dresses, told AFP. “We can eat swamp cabbage, we can gather clams for free, and we can collect driftwood with which to cook them.” Linked by flimsy wooden footbridges, the crowded shanties on the shore of Laguna Lake are warrens of plywood and metal sheets sitting precariously on thin stilts above the garbage-flecked water hyacinth beds. Some sections lie below the lake’s water level, and the government says the community, colonized by poor city migrants in the mid-1990s soon after the government turned the swamp into an open dump, is a double-barrelled problem. Not only are its residents at risk from future floods, their homes also prevent floodwaters from receding. President Gloria Arroyo declared the slum unfit for habitation and sent in demolition teams when last year’s floodwaters finally receded, but 50,000 shanties housing nearly a quarter of a million people still stand months later. Mother-of-two Marites Lerion lives in constant fear of both the demolition crews and the slimy water lapping at her floorboards. “One time my son fell through the floor. He could have easily drowned,” Lerion said. But her family cannot afford to flee because doing so would mean having her husband give up his job of driving a pedicab, which earns him P150 (about $3) a day.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100626com3.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL Hacienda redux FRONTLINE Now comes the hard part focus Slum problem as Philippines braces for more flood