By Ella Hyacinth R. Golez, Deanne Angelica T. Larroza, Althea Mae P. Paclibar, Riggs Zyrille G. Vergara, and Zynnie Rose C. Zaragosa
Breathing. It starts as early as your first cry as a baby and ends as soon as you face death. It’s the ascending and descending motion of the chest brought by the movement of air in and out of the lungs, and it is a small defining moment of one’s existence. It’s one of the mundane things in life, so mundane that most people take it for granted.
But life is not just a series of inhales and exhales. Somewhere in between, a newborn failed to cry, an athlete ran out of air, and a patient had a flat line. Somewhere in between, a porter panted as he carried the heavy weights, a trash collector endured the foulest stench, and a pregnant teenager suffered from the most painful sensation.
Somewhere in between, one has struggled to breathe.
REMNANTS OF HOPE IN WASTELAND
Fifteen minutes away from the sweet-smelling fast-food chains and fancy malls lies a community casted over by shadows of mountains made of muddy plastics, viscous chemical mixtures, and other human litter. Wooden pig pens, makeshift dwelling from scrap as homes to families of four to eight and children wearing nothing but muddy shirts are the typical visions in Calajunan. For Raul*, 16, this grimy and filthy place was his home.
Raul is just one of the children in Calajunan dumpsite who struggle every day from burrowing and searching plastic bottles in massive heaps of garbage to sell to junkshops in order to earn money and augment his meager daily allowance. Every day, he would race his way home only to be greeted by a nauseating gust of wind coming from the neighboring wall.
Calajunan is one of the barangays in Mandurriao, accommodating the solid waste of Iloilo City. For a community of an estimated 100 families residing in the dumpsites, garbage collection is one of the primary sources of living. In a recent study of Sardinia Conference on waste management and landfilling, about 310 tons of solid waste are dumped in Calajunan every day. Back in years, residents of all ages are free to work as garbage collectors in the dumpsite. The people, you and old alike, can be seen scattered around the mountain of garbage, finding valuables and collecting plastic bottles. But this entire community was devastated after an old woman got ran over by a bulldozer while reaching out for plastic bottles last June 28, 2017. This tragedy urged the city government to strictly implement an order in which only those 18 to 50 years of age can work in the dumpsite.
Despite the implementation, children are still seen over the pile of trash frolicking in between laughs and smiles on their faces, paying no heed to the wasteland enclosing them.
As Raul makes his way to the dumpsite, he smiled to a kid sucking his soiled thumb and the lady in a tattered sleeveless carrying him. He was Toto, a four-year-old kid of Rosalyn Labaro, 40, a mother of four.
“Te pila na nakuha mo nga kwarta sa subong nga pamasura?” Raul jokingky teased Toto.
“Siyen naman ah,” Tiyay Rosalyn said. For four sacks of plastic bottles, these residents receive P100-200 depending on the weight of the collected garbage.
Children in this place suffer frequent colds and cough. Since they have no money to go to a hospital, they don’t have enough knowledge they might have worse ailment than the simple cough and colds. This unfortunate truth isn’t just true to Raul’s family, but to all the rest of the residents in Calajunan. With pleading eyes, they even resorted to government support, but even programs like Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program cannot sustain a family of eight members. They don’t have any choice but to withstand the hardships and live their lives with positivity.
Raul picks up the last garbage for the day as the night creeps in. With all the stench that has downtrodden him, he still managed to survive another day in the dumpsite. Another inhale, another exhale.
He is just few of the many who struggle to experience the better side of life. Rau is a perfect embodiment of what it feels like breathing behind the shadows of the progressive city, immense industries, and fledging love. Breathing doesn’t just revolve in inhaling and exhaling air to sustain our physical body, but it also depicts the sacrifices of many individuals to survive the daily adversities in life and find ways to attain happiness, contentment, and belongingness./PN
