Traveling along Commonwealth Avenue on my way to Payatas, I can at times catch the unmistakable stench of garbage. The stench becomes stronger as I wind down Litex road. I get used to the smell upon arrival in the Payatas Phase II community, known simply as Lot 76. The smell and sight of garbage have been with me since I began conducting field research there (involving housing and land tenure issues).

But what struck me most was not so much the stench of garbage as the seeming despair brought about by poverty. The poverty and despair, as represented by the garbage, seemed to have been woven into the life fabric of the Lot 76 community. As time went on, I tried to delve deeper into the narratives of the people in the community to test my initial hypothesis.

Lot 76 is the community affected by the Payatas trash slide which killed and buried more than 200 scavengers under an avalanche of garbage nine years ago. Except for a marker put up by the city government, there is not much to remind the community of that terrible tragedy. But perhaps there is one reminder that danger continues to lurk: the stench which, in recent months, has become increasingly prominent, due to garbage being piled again beside the community.

But perhaps more than the external garbage, there is inner garbage being carried by the community: the land promised them (lupang pangako) remains land nailed to this promise (lupang napako) emanating from failed election promises. The Payatas garbage dump has thus become emblematic of the community’s internal struggles to own the land they have occupied for many years now.

During one of my visits, I struck up a conversation with a middle-aged woman selling turon (fried bananas in spring roll wrapper) and sago (a brown sugar drink with pearl balls). I mused about the national elections next year and asked whom she would vote for. For sure, Father, they (politicians) will promise us the land,” she said in Filipino. “We do not really care much about them, they might as well throw their promises into the garbage. The important thing is that we continue to save.)

The concept of savings has been very much part of the Lot 76 community. Savings was first initiated by Fr. Norberto “Bebot” Carcellar, CM, a Vincentian missionary priest who was head pastor of the Ina ng Lupang Pangako (Our Lady of the Promised Land) parish in the early 1990s. Savings was used by Father Bebot as an alternative programme to help uplift the urban poor. Response to the savings programme was so great that before long, Father Bebot had made savers of almost everyone in his parish, from pedicab drivers to taho vendors. Various savings groups mushroomed which helped meet the needs of their members. Savings proved a tool in providing funding for education, livelihood and emergency purposes. This networking of savers later led to the establishment of the Homeless Peoples Federation of the Philippines Incorporated (HPFPI) in 1998. It was HPFPI members of Payatas who first responded to the trash slide tragedy two years later.

Could the Payatas trash slide tragedy have been averted? At the time the tragedy struck, there was much finger pointing and blaming. Many blamed the city government, while others blamed land realtors and private contractors of garbage. Reflecting on this tragedy, members of the Lot 76 community have come to gradually realize that perhaps they too should share in the blame. Driven by poverty and despair, they failed to fight for the dignity of their community. Perhaps it is this admission that led them to utilize savings which have become a symbol of their own gradual empowerment. The use of savings has thus evolved into a tool and strategy for land acquisition. Given this inner garbage within themselves, the community has turned to savings, to help avert an internal garbage trash slide.

It is with this awareness that the Lot 76 community has met the challenge of land tenure head on. They have become aware that perhaps the land has evaded them because of their own internal garbage. They have unwittingly created an internal dumpsite wherein they have dumped their conflicts and self interests. Here were to be found their biases and prejudices, their own self-righteousness and pride, present in both leaders and members of the community. Realizing that external and internal conflicts among themselves can lead to years of their land remaining a promise, savings groups in the community have started to finally get their act together in laying claim to and purchasing the land promised them.

While continuing to be wary and cynical of politicians, the people have turned to themselves, so as to help local government as well. Local governance has thus become internalized in coordination with the local barangay. This has resulted in the initiative of the community to have their main road built and to fix their drainage, while in dialogue with both TOFEMI Realty corporation (the Lot 76 land owner) and Mayor Sonny Belmonte (representing the Quezon city government).

It is this spirit of dialogue which has made me realize that perhaps there is more than cynicism to be encountered when we think of national government politics. It is the spirit of hope which can be found amidst poverty, when confronted with the problems of governance. As we go through the desert of our own doubts about local governance, perhaps we can look at the example of the Lot 76 community, and turn to an “internal savings” journey within us.

And as we go through our desert journey and sift through our nation’s garbage, we also need to save and invest in renewed faith in ourselves as a nation. We need to believe that some day, we will reach the promised land. And indeed, if we hold true to this belief, we will conquer this promised land, and make it truly our own.

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