The Lost Children of Ulingan

In one of the makeshift tent houses in Ulingan, a charred wooden statue of Jesus Christ stood in a grimy corner—the Lord’s hands and arms are amputated as if to deprive the Savior from offering any comfort and hope. The statue was one of the scrap woods gathered by a scavenger in the dump site, and destined to the fires of Ulingan to become good charcoal. But the scavenger thought better of it and left it in his house. Thus was Jesus saved from the furnace.

Hope and comfort are probably scarce among the people of Ulingan but they are not entirely missing. There are many people in Ulingan—most especially the children—who find comfort and hope among the little things they find in the dumpsite or in the charcoal furnace.

A little girl named Jessa collects charred nails from the burnt woods in Ulingan. These blackened nails meant little to most of us, but to Jessa these little nails could save her and her family from the pangs of hunger. The nails sell at eight pesos a kilo—enough to buy a loaf of bread and alleviate their hunger.

Jessa is one of the child workers in Ulingan. The eldest among a brood of five, she is counted upon by her family to help alleviate the meager income. Her father and mother both work in the dump site and the charcoal furnace, or wherever they can find work to earn a little. Sometimes her mother goes to the market to ask for junked vegetables.

Jessa’s family came from the island of Leyte. They escaped the rural poverty and insurgency warfare from their remote village in order to find better living conditions in Tondo, Manila. As it happened, their living condition did not get any better in Tondo. It was not the paradise they envisioned it to be. Nevertheless, here they can live in peace, and can survive poverty, what with all the garbage that they can find and sell, and all the woods that they can burn—even if these pose a significant hazard to their health.

Like many children in Ulingan, Jessa and her siblings never went to school, even though there is a free school near Ulingan. Jessa’s family decided that school and poverty do not mix. Also at eleven years of age, Jessa is deemed too old to study. Now, instead of listening to a teacher’s lecture, Jessa is laboriously scouring the charcoal pits with her small magnet to attract the little nails that may lie within the charcoal debris. She then puts the nails inside her grimy sack.

In another area of Ulingan, I see a little girl of eight with a withered doll she picked up in the dump site. The doll—a plastic Bisque imitation-- was naked and grimy, one-eyed and one-armed. Nevertheless, it is still a doll and the deprived girl is hugging it tightly. It may be the only toy that she has ever had and one can see in her eyes the happiness the doll gives to her.


To the scavenger children of Ulingan and Pier 18 (the nearby dump site), a discarded doll, a junked toy, even if already damaged and grimy--are perhaps some of the most treasured finds in the garbage site. These toys—though they may have once made a home in the upscale villages of Manila-- could still find a home in the heart of a slum child.

Older children, however, no longer need toys. Aged twelve to fourteen, these children have other more important things to find in the dump site than old discarded toys. A plastic bottle, a scrap metal, an electrical wiring, can all be converted to cash at the nearby junkshops. In Ulingan, the boys can work as coal packers or stevedores, earning a few pesos that could be able to buy food for the hungry stomach. The girls meanwhile have to assist their mothers in packing charcoals.

Jason Narido, twelve years old, is one of the older child laborers in Ulingan. Orphaned at a young age, Jason lives a vagabond life, packing coals at day, and wandering by night looking for a place to sleep, which means any sidewalk corner or a makeshift place with a roof. Jason had been to school once but since his father died of a mysterious illness some years ago, he decided to quit school and in order to work.

Today, I find Jason doing his usual job of packing coals into sacks. For each sack that he fills, he earns four pesos. Lifting the coals with his bare hands and carefully putting them into sacks, Jason fills up ten sacks from morning until noon, earning him forty pesos. But Jason has to share ten pesos with his friend Louie who holds the sacks while he filled each.

Jason is amused I took the time to interview him, although he seems hesitant answering many of my questions, especially if they are about his family. Failing to elicit response, I turn to Jason’s co-workers to know more about him. They tell me that Jason is not totally an orphan. His mother, it turned out, is still living, though he doesn’t know her whereabouts. She had abandoned him some years ago. Jason doesn’t like to speak much about his family, and so whenever someone asks him about them, he just replies that he is an orphan.

Jenny, a co-worker of Jason in Ulingan, asked me to help Jason. Although she is poor herself, she has a family nevertheless. She told me how Jason lives everyday. “Kawawa talaga yan kuya” Jenny told me, “walang pamilya walang bahay, palaboy. Kung saan saan siya naututlog. Minsan nakulong pa dahil pinagbintangan na nagnakaw ng kalakal. Pero mabait yan kuya. Tulungan mo”. (Please take pity on him. He doesn’t have a family, no house to go home to. He just sleeps everywhere. One time he was even imprisoned because he was suspected of stealing scavenged materials. But he is a good boy. Please help him.)

The life-story of an Ulingan boy is not one for the soft-hearted. Apparently, Jason has an older sister in Parola, but since she got married and begat children, she too abandoned Jason. Jason soon plunged into the world of squalor reserved for children whose family had abandoned them.

I asked Jason if he would like to live with me. Honestly, I could just adopt him, sponsor his schooling and give him a chance to live a more normal life. He smiles but declines my offer. His world is the Ulingan, and despite the harsh conditions, this is what he truly calls his home. Indeed, despite being poor and without a family, Jason survives in independence. An experienced and industrious laborer despite his youth, he could variously work as an errand boy, a stevedore, a coal packer, a trash scavenger and any job at all that could earn him money and assure that he would have something to eat.

After the grueling work, Jason heads to the nearby carinderia (a local store that sells cooked food). This is the day’s highlight for Jason. With his forty pesos, he buys two scoops of fried rice (14 pesos) and an ice-tubig (ice cold water) for 2 pesos. He calls this meal as altanghap which is shortened for almusal-tanghalian-hapunan (breakfast-lunch-supper combined into one). The next meal he would eat will be tomorrow, if he will be lucky enough to find a charcoal owner to work for. As I bid Jason goodbye, I wonder what will happen to him in the future. But then again, I feel confident Jason can somehow manage to survive in the cruel world of Ulingan. He is such a strong and courageous boy.

In Ulingan, one could stay and gather enough stories that could break the hearts of men. But I do not go to Ulingan to merely tell the tales of pathos, but rather to unravel the conundrum of abject poverty that is a stranger to most of us.

It is said that the eyes are the windows of our souls. And in the eyes of these children, the truth is starkly revealed.

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!