Tondo's Ulingan: Life in Manila's Inferno (2)

Ulingan is a small squatter community in Vitas, Tondo Manila located near the North Harbor where the Manila Bay and the Pasig River meet. Also known as Sitio Damayan--a rather anachronistic name for an impoverished slum community that doesn't receive any subsidy from the government--Ulingan came from the Tagalog word uling (charcoal), and it means “a place where charcoal is made.”

The workers of Ulingan, called ulingeros, rely on the charcoal industry for their daily bread: they work here as wood burners and charcoal packers. The average income per day, however, is way below the minimum wage standards in the Philippines. Many workers earn just around 40 to 70 pesos a day, a fraction of the standard 400 pesos (roughly, 9US$) as mandated by the law.

The ulingeros, however, seemed content enough. They are not looking for other jobs outside of Ulingan; indeed, they even feel complacent they are employed and have some source of income to somehow mitigate their wretched existence. The pay, however meager it may be, gives them assurance that they will have something to eat on the next day. P40 can buy a kilo of poor-quality rice and maybe a 10-peso bowl of pagpag— discarded left-over foods from city restaurants that have been collected and offered for sale by entrepreneurial scavengers.

Aside from the charcoal industry, another source of income for the Ulingan people is the Pier 18 garbage dump site nearby*. The refuse of Metro Manila goes here every day and becomes sustenance for the Ulingan people who sift through tons of Manila’s garbage and find something useful that can still be sold to the junk shops. These include scrap metals, plastics, cardboards, electrical wirings, and so on. After a whole day of digging and sifting through the mountains of garbage, the average scavenger just earns enough money for a day’s worth of food.

A Surreal Place

Ulingan is a place that challenges man’s notion of a normal existence. Outsiders who visit Ulingan are appalled by the inhuman conditions of the community. Sidney Snoeck, the famed Belgian photojournalist, visited Ulingan with me several times. He witnessed first hand how the people lived in terrible condition. “This place”, says Mr. Snoeck, “is surreal."

Indeed, Ulingan is a surreal place, as it breaches our normal notion of a community, even that of a slum environment. We know that a slum is supposed to be a poor community where people live in poverty and squalor. But even here, the word slum is an understatement. Everything in Ulingan is an anomaly. The whole place is laden with garbage piles, dirt, and flies. The rats easily outnumber the people. And as if these were not enough, the whole neighborhood shimmers with waves of fumes, heat, and black smoke. In some places nearest the charcoal factory, visibility is zero. Fire and smoke is perpetually present here.

But Aling Mercedita, 46, and her nine children have long regarded fire and smoke to be their benefactor. “Without the charcoal ovens”, she says, “We would not have survived as we have. Ulingan gives us our daily bread”.

Aling Mercedita, like the many women I met in Ulingan, is a widow (many other Ulingan wives were separated from their husbands who ran away). Her husband, an ulingero, died of tuberculosis a few years ago, succumbing to the long-term effects of smoke inhalation.

Now, working as ulingera herself, she has to support her nine children. To lessen the burden, she was forced to send the three youngest to an orphanage for the simple reason that-- to use her own words--“they will just die here.” Her remaining children had to work too, digging through garbage or sifting through charcoals.

Aling Mercedita smiled while wiping the tears that instantly welled in her wrinkled eyes as she remembered her lost children. Most people can smile in adversity, but one cannot successfully mask the pain, and the tears are the sign of internal suffering. “It gnaws on me”, she continues “I feel guilty whenever I think of my other children. But what can I do?”

In general, fortitude is an admirable trait. But the poor who bear this characteristic do not strive for admiration. They didn’t want to suffer as no people would. What they needed is our understanding and compassion. Theirs is a brutal existence, and we cannot know exactly the extent of brutality unless we are brave enough to enter their world.

Inside the Charcoal Factory

The charcoal factory is the very center of Ulingan. Divided into small shallow pits in the earth enclosed by makeshift fences, the factory is where wood is burned to become charcoal. Each of the pits is filled with neat stacks of wood. The fire is ignited at the top of the wood stack and then covered with yero or iron sheet. Everything is then covered with moist soil. Beneath the piles of wood are small shafts of tubes called tambutso-- flues that act as the exhaust or chimneys of the fire and smoke from within the wood stacks. There are eight or more flues in each charcoal oven, depending on its size.

The combination of dust, smoke and fumes make Ulingan seem like an inferno—which in a way it is. The acrid smoke and the sweltering heat are overpowering. The people of Ulingan have been burning charcoal for over three days now. Looking haggard and restless, they vigilantly monitor the fire, making sure it is under control. The wood must be burned through slow pyrolysis. If the fire grew any stronger, the wood would be reduced into worthless soot.

On the other charcoal ovens of the factory, some workers are already through burning their wood. After three days, it is now time to harvest the charcoals from the ovens. With shovels, they carefully lift the charcoals piece by piece to put them on a dry ground. This too must be done carefully so as not to damage the precious charcoal.

Many of the workers in Ulingan are small children. Some are teenagers and a few are even as young as six or seven. Unable to attend school because of poverty, they are “no read no write” children. Most of them have very low self-esteem and have developed the kind of sullen and taciturn behavior common to children who have endured long-term suffering.

Nonetheless they are here to survive, even if they do not know until when. Instead of pencils and pens, they have shovels in their hands, taking turns scooping the charcoals into sacks, collecting the nails that could be sold to the junk shops, or packing the charcoals into little plastic bags. All the kids work without protective masks, gloves, and boots. Some are naked.

At the end of each grueling working day, the Ulingan people look bedraggled, gaunt weary figures who seem to have just come from a conflagration--which essentially is where they had been. Their eyes look sullen, hair singed with fire, faces masked with soot, and their bodies layered by thick grime.

But the polluted Manila Bay is just a step away, and after their grueling work, many dip into the bay to remove the grime on their bodies, and most importantly, to cool and relax themselves—a welcome respite after spending a day’s work in hell.

*The Pier 18 is actually a garbage transfer point rather than a dumpsite. Nevertheless the people regard it as such.



This article is published originally at The Philippine Online Chronicles, now one of the world's leading web resource site about the Philippines. Please check our website here!