Daang Bakal: An Ethnography on Philippine National Railway Communities in Manila and Makati City

Abstract

Almost half of the populations of city residents are composed of the Urban Poor in the Philippines. Urban Poor has two major kinds, the slumdwellers and the squatter community. Among these Urban Poor a large number of it can be found in the PNR compound and thus considered as the PNR community. The study entitled “Buhay Riles. An ethnography on the Lives of People Living Along the Railways in Manila and Makati.” aims to describe the culture and the way of life existing in the PNR Compound. Specifically, the study’s objectives are to describe the daily activities in the community, to describe the material culture that the PNR communities have, to illustrate the physical environment in the compound, to depict the present living conditions of the communities in the PNR compound, to determine the processes involve in different aspects of their lives such as education, health and nutrition, livelihood, politics and religion, and lastly to determine the possible changes that will be brought by the demolition. For the objectives of this research to be realized, observations, conversations and formal interviews were conducted. Through that the culture and the way of life in the railway communities was determined. Based on the interviews it was concluded that the residents in the PNR compound suffers from a lot of difficulties such as lack of access to basic necessities, poverty and substandard living condition. Because of these difficulties the different aspects of their lives were also affected such as impermanent source of living, malnutrition and poor hygiene, and sometimes-hopeless view in life. Such scenario does not differ from the other squatter communities or slumdwellers in the Philippines. The situation of these Urban Poor is basically uniform and thus leads to the struggle of the Urban Poor in the Philippines to elevate their condition.