Selling ‘pagpag’ in a poor neighborhood in Manila circa 2023 | Photo by Rated Korina via Wikimedia Commons
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, among the 18 regions in the Philippines, counting the newly created Negros Region, Central Visayas has the most number of poor people at 2.56 million in the first semester of 2023, while among the provinces, Cebu topped the list with 1.72 million poor people. Impressive – in the wrong way, but exceptional.
The Bisaya dialect is widely spoken in these regions. Among the words that have found it in colloquial usage is ‘hapilan”, quite literally translated into English as a garbage dump—not just any garbage dump, a stinky, and get this, an INHABITED stinky garbage dump. It stands to reason that the garbage dump in Manila, where the majority are Bisaya, would call the place ‘Hapilan’—it’s what it is in their native dialect.
The word ‘Hapilan’ from lost history somehow evolved into ‘Happyland.’ Most likely, it is a product of a broken English conversation between a local and an English-speaking visitor asking for the place’s name, bastardizing ‘Hapilan’ into ‘Happy Land.’ A permutation only the locals embraced to dampen the original less savory term into a blissful expression connoting happiness in a place where happiness is one of the last things to be found. Nowadays, some residents assert that the recent anti-drug campaign of the Duterte administration rid the area of the most violent, most notorious gangs, thereby making the area a happier land, comparatively speaking.
Typically, at dawn, garbage collection trucks from the Metropolitan Manila area meander their way to the most extensive slum area in Manila, the district of Tondo. By luck, the region with the most significant count of poor people also represents the majority of ‘residents’ in the most extensive slum area in Manila – the Bisaya. This stopover for garbage trucks in Tondo will require a revisit to be better understood. Still, it is sufficient to say that the area boasts a busy trade in de facto refuses ‘classification’ or garbage recycling/sorting. A host of junk shops litter the main thoroughfare along this neighborhood.
HappyLand officially has a population of around 12,000, but the number most widely used is between 20,000 and 40,000. It is a sizable population indeed—for elections and allocating Manila’s share of the national tax allotment (NTA, previously the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). There are reasons why this community is tolerated, and the reasons above are probably the most compelling.
Hence, more crowding brings a more significant share of the national tax allotment to the most crowded cities, ergo, slums. Ironically, those who live in the most overcrowded slums do not receive the benefits of those funds—no housing, food assistance, health care, etc
A critical by-product of garbage sorting is a local source of protein—leftover food from the most popular franchise fast food restaurants. Chicken is the go-to ingredient of the famous ‘pagpag‘ – a half-a-plastic bag (thankfully, the plastic bags are new) of ‘reprocessed’ leftover from the garbage assortment of chicken parts, washed, boiled, and re-fried, plus spices, also new, can be had for about forty U.S. cents ($0.40).
In HappyLand, less than a quarter of a square mile, between 20,000 and 40,000 people live literally on top of one another. In comparison, New York City, with all its high-rise buildings and multi-story apartments, where about 29,000 people live per square mile, has all the requisite infrastructure, such as plumbing and electricity. Residents of HappyLand somehow find survival without the basics of life—like food, for instance.
Plastic bottles go for around thirty pesos per kilo (around $0.30 per pound), and aluminum cans go for around seventy pesos per kilo (around $0.70 per pound). The ‘entrepreneurs’ of HappyLand eke out a living, somehow just as those who prepare ‘pagpag’ each day from the early morning’s haul of the remnants of the city’s eateries. Oddly enough, there are ‘tenants’ in HappyLand, which means there are landlords. How that’s possible among informal settlers, also known as squatters, is a concept that eludes most explanations, legal once anyway.
These slums are but a symptom of a broader problem brought about by the unintended consequences of the national tax code. Taxes are calculated primarily based on population and land area. Hence, more crowding brings a more significant share of the national tax allotment to the most crowded cities, ergo, slums. Ironically, those who live in the most overcrowded slums do not receive the benefits of those funds—no housing, food assistance, health care, etc.
The tax code incentivizes internal migration to the most densely populated urban areas as more funds follow the population, draining rural areas of population and financial resources. The calculus for tax allotments needs amending if the problem of urban blight is to be solved.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Crispin Fernandez advocates for overseas Filipinos, public health, transformative political change, and patriotic economics. He is also a community organizer, leader, and freelance writer.
