I’ve been to places like this before, places where the poverty is so palpable that despair hangs in the air and presses against your skin. Yet in this place, this one place that seems like so many others, the air is light with laughter and greetings. The poverty is unmistakable, but so is the hope.
"Magandang umaga po!" we call out.
"Magandang umaga ho!" they call back.
It’s like stepping into an alternate reality – one second I was in the middle of a slum, the next at the beginning of a gay hamlet. Brilliantly-colored homes line one side of a brick path, while benches and sheds dot the other. The Pasig River runs along the embankment, a much cleaner version of the old eyesore. From my vantage point at the center of the lane, I see Guadalupe Bridge spanning the sky, and cars rushing down the length of Rizal Avenue. Here, in this hidden little corner of peace, people like me wander around in shock and delight.
This is the RFM Gawad Kalinga Village, located in Buayang Bato, Mandaluyong City. Launched recently, this village is smack in the middle of the Pasig River slums, a burst of color amid the gloom and grayness. This is corporate social responsibility taken to it truest end: RFM Corporation chief executive officer and president Joey Concepcion has pledged to finance 100 homes out of the 700 expected to be built on the sprawling 20-square-meter property. A group of volunteers has stepped up to lead the way towards community empowerment: donating time and resources to build homes and infrastructure, at the same time building a spirit of bayanihan among the villagers.
With great pride, he welcomes me into his home, the square cement structure similar to hundreds of others all over GK sites in the country. Inside it is a different story. The walls are painted a beautiful peach, while delicate wood and plasterwork decorate the ceiling. Framed pictures of children in togas wielding diplomas are scattered over surfaces. With the air of a grand host, Fabian gestures toward a flowered sofa. Then he sits down and proceeds to tell me his story.
When Gawad Kalinga approached the homeowners along the Pasig, nobody took up the offer. GK promised to take down the homes, send in volunteers to aid homeowners rebuild and set up livelihood projects. Their goal: To take out both the slum and the slum mentality. Yet the proposal was so incredible that no one dared accept. Except for Fabian.
He says that nobody accepted because people refused to believe. For him, it was like a gamble. He trusted in Gawad Kalinga. Even if GK had failed, he says, what they would leave would still be better than what the Fabians originally had.
"Isang malakas na bagyo, babagsak na bahay naming – gawa lang kasi sa lawanit.
While their home was being built, Fabian put together a shanty for his family by the river. It was a pleasant surprise, he says, to be working side by side with volunteers, mostly students, from all over Manila. All of them carried cement, painted walls, and sweated hours for his family.
He laughed while he remembered, "Pati nga yung mga Amerikano na galing sa International School nakikibuhat rin."
He never regretted his decision. A high school graduate and a retired MWSS employee, he now spends his time puttering about in his house with the income sent to him by his children. The interiors are all his doing.
I asked him why he took the risk. He had never heard of GK before they came along, the people who approached him had little to offer them. He smiled at me and answered.
"Puro ngiti ka sakin – alam ko tuloy na may patutunguhan ang pinag-uusapan natin. Ganun din pakiramdam ko sa GK. Ako kasi, ‘pag tumingin ako sa tao, at ang approach ay maganda, alam ko na gagawin ko. Maganda nga ang pinatunguhan ng GK."
She told her story almost apologetically, as if she wondered why anyone would care to hear.
Her name is Lilia Bautista, 46 years old with four children. Last year, her home burned down, leaving her family nothing.
Her old home had no toilet, no curtains, no water, no electricity – but it was all they had. "Napakasakit, dahil walang naiwan, kahit ano."
Gawad Kalinga came along, heard her story, and offered her a home.
"Nagtaka kami, pero dahil sa kailangan namin, naniwala ako."
She points to a house at the end of the row. "Ayan ang bahay ko, sa awa ng Diyos."
This is a country that has ordinary people doing extraordinary deeds – be one of them.