23 – Slumdog Millionaire

The Philippines is a country of contrast particularly between the haves and the have nots, the slumdogs and the millionaires, and nowhere quite as starkly it seems as here in the island of Negros. Only in recent decades a middle class has started to emerge. The society still remains very feudal in nature. Land ownership is the privilege of the few elite wealthy families while more than half of the population are squatters.

Adjacent to one of our GK sites is the largest slum area in metro Bacolod. Hundreds of families have been squatters for decades in this area that is supposed to be an easement between the wall of a gated subdivision and the road that leads to the wharfs. It is an area notorious for drugs, firearms, gambolling and prostitution. Gradually, little by little, GK is reclaiming the swampy land, rebuilding houses and in the process rebuilding lives. We often take international visitors there as it is a perfect example of the ‘before’ and the ‘after’, side by side. I took my Mum and Aunt there when they visited over Christmas. We always enter with a GK local for safety and so as not to get lost in the maze of narrow waterlogged alley ways. It is quite confronting and almost impossible to fathom how people live in such conditions.

Also when my Mum and Aunt were here, we visited the other extreme – some of the ancestral houses just up the road in Silay. Silay was once known as the Paris of Negros. Landowners made their fortunes on sugar cane and built grand homes, some of which are now open as museums … of a not so bygone era.

The work of GK’s is as much about appealing to the rich to donate land as it is about helping the poor to have a better future.