In a city of rising skyscrapers and rapid urban development, what should disturb us more: a woman climbing out of a sewer in broad daylight, or informal settlers, though legally entitled to humane and just relocation, being displaced from their homes to make way for government projects, underscoring the layered realities of displacement in the country?
Just last Monday of May 26 at around 4:00 PM, precisely under the Adelantado street sign in Rufino corner in Salcedo Village, a woman was spotted emerging out of a sewer greeting drivers in traffic before she promptly fled the scene. Reddit user RoughMasterpieci reported in their original post that the woman ran past him, and “a few pedestrians, motorcyclists and even the traffic enforcer just stood there stunned, confused, maybe even a little amused.”
An officer from the Makati Police Station reported to have immediately coordinated with the city’s Commercial Estate Association in investigating the said canal and later installed metal covers to its pathway to avoid a repeat of the incident. It had been made known to social media users by the said publisher just a day later, however, of his new discovery: that the underground sewage system is home to around 15 others who have called it the “Botanical Garden.”
Standing by two jolly jeeps parked next to the creek flanked by two culverts beside Makati Medical Center, the user shared that he had been capturing photographs of the scene as his curiosity had urged him to dig deeper into what he had witnessed. At that moment, a man slowly came to view and cautiously checked his surroundings in his attempt to make his way out of one of the culverts, only to lock eyes with the photographer who would later learn about how he had come to be.
The Reddit poster shared that the man’s name was Jerwin and “has been living like this for three years.” Another man identified as Rommel later emerged from the same creek and joined in on their conversation, and shared that he had been there longer— “about a decade.” As the witness lent an ear to the two and learned of their situations, he came to one conclusion being that Jerwin and Rommel were victims of their circumstance.
Jerwin was once a deliveryman for a corporation and stayed at his employers’ compound until he had passed, leaving him homeless. Rommel, on the other hand, had a home. It was “an informal settlement on the edge of the city, until it was later demolished by the government to make way for a new project.”
As the three men conversed, it was revealed that the two culverts do not lead anywhere, except that the creek itself stretches all the way to Don Bosco where another group of people live with “different rules.” According to Rommel, “Us here in the Botanical Garden—we’re not connected to the Don Bosco side.”
They later shared that they spent their days cleaning to clear the creek and canals in attempts to better the flow of water. Some days they help the aforementioned jolly jeeps stationed by the creek by hauling trash and “doing odd jobs for a few coins and meals.”
Jerwin then clarified to the Reddit poster that they did not live in canals but they hid in them, from the sun, the police, occasionally to stash what little scraps they had, and oftentimes to keep each other safe: “It’s a temporary escape.” He and Rommel also shared that officials would harass them “not for any crime, but because of the way they look, the way they smell.”
In publishing the photographs of the scene together with a lengthy caption telling readers of the reality of the lives found below, the Reddit user ended his post writing, “This isn’t a story about drugs. It’s not a story about a crime. It’s not a story about poverty porn. It’s a story about people—a community. It’s about the cracks we cover up with concrete, the faces we ignore when they crawl out of the kanal.”
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