Another early start to go with EdM to the settlements built above the sea in Navotas. The majority of people here are fishermen, with an average family size of around 6 children.
It’s an extraodinary warren of houses constructed on bamboo stilts. The houses on the inside are remarkably clean as they have access to electricity and water, but there are no toilets so all rubbish and sewage go directly into the sea.
We walk on planks at least 5 metres above sea level. I can see why their biggest fear is children falling into the sea, which apparently happens relatively frequently. This trip has been planned for Humanopole, one of EDM’s French partners. They interview and film one of the families asking simple questions about their daily life. The woman they interview has 6 children, gets up at 4 every morning and says she is happy when they can eat 3 meals a 
day and go to school.
Meanwhile, Anna-Louisa spends the morning at the less scenic offices of the anti-child exploitation NGO, ECPAT Philippines, with its Director, Dolores, in Quezon City. Here, Dolores explains that the Philippines was one of the first countries in which ECPAT began its work. It was one of 3 NGOs to campaign for the succesful implementation of the first Filipino Child Protection Republic Act 7016. Today, it continues to champion the advocacy of children’s rights and participation as well as providing services to children who have been sexually expoited. Dolores highlights that collecting information about child sexual exploitation is challenging not only because of the geography of the Philippines, the taboos surrounding abuse and exploitation, the the autonomy of village level institutions, but because of difficulties in dealing with national agencies.
Despite a culture of denial, the exploitation of children for sexual purposes is rampant in the Philippines, with an estimated 40% of male foreign visitors to the Philippines engaging in sex tourism each year. Dolores explains that ECPAT’s current priority is establishing a centre in Boracay to educate the local community about the dangers of child exploitation as well as to provide psychological services to children who have already been victims of exploitation and abuse.
Anna-Louisa leaves ECPAT feeling disturbed. As we discuss our meetings back at Pacific Plaza, we determine to investigate sex tourism further.
Today we are seeing the Inner City Development Corporation (ICDC) in Quezon City, where the University of Manila is based. It is an upcoming area, but one of the worst hit by the typhoon in 2008. As usual when visiting an EDM partner we take local transport: in this instance, an unairconditioned train jampacked with people which takes us to EDM’s director, Frank Renaudin. He meets us on the platform and then we share a tricycle rickshaw for the last leg of the journey.
The children’s saving programme has got 1,200 children saving at least 1 peso a day from the age of 6 to13. The money is deposited in a special savings account gathering 7% interest /year. They can withdraw their money at any time, but only from 1-2 pesos every day. Mothers often follow their children’s example and start saving, but other times they come to raid their child’s bank account as they cannot pay a bill.
Eventually we leave, still shaken by what we stumbled upon. Zeny lightens the mood by taking us to the Memorial Services Shop. We admire her range of 9 coffins, all made of different material, varying in price. Often she manages to recycle the coffins, which helps to offer the poor cheaper funerals – that and their donated Volvo hearse. They tell us how the memorial shop was flooded to the ceiling in the 2009 typhoon and how they had to buy everything again. Zeny explains the reasons she started a ‘low-cost funeral business’: ‘it is, she says dramatically, ‘very expensive to die in the Philippines.’ Funerals cost a lot, although they do not need to.
We come across another white coffin. This time it belongs to a 17 year old girl who fell ill after the typhoon and was in hospital a long time. As before, there are a few tables drawn up with men silently playing cards.
We get in a taxi to ‘Smokey Mountain’ a former rubbish dump site alongside which a slum has grown up. This is the Tondo district: one of the poorest in Manila. We are joining Entrepreneurs du Monde (EdM), a French NGO specialising in microfinance, on a visit to their local partner,‘Uplift’.
We meet our first microcredit clients (EdM calls them partners), both owners of tiny convenience shops – ‘sari sari’ stalls. In both cases, the loans are for 5,000 pesos, (around £63) to buy products. There is no bookkeeping material in one shop – the ‘sales invoices’ were square pieces of paper with amounts pierced onto a nail in the corner and a rolled-up, ink-smudged list turned out to be his bill for goods from the shopping mall. Uplift’s Livelihood and Development officer explained that the shopkeeper is a new borrower and that he should and would be keeping accounts, but that meanwhile that they knew and trusted him. It is clear that social capital and character analysis figures highly in the risk assessment performed by these tiny MFIs.
at and drink. This would enable the family to raise the money to pay for the funeral (PHP 50,000, around £700).