13 years old and that's his life I would have voluntarily sterilised myself had I thought that would be my sons life at the age of 13
Even though most who have visited Manila and are aware of situations like this, it is still a difficult watch.
I took this photo in December 2005, this was in the bay rather than the rivers so not quite so polluted and they may have been there for some fun rather than scavenging but I suspect they did collect a bit anyway. Janna's cousins had to do this 10 or 12 years ago, some of them have grown up and now managed to get into college and are studying IT one of them is studying real time control systems I enjoyed my talks with him last year, but seriously they were so poor Myrna's family were living in Nanay's shack (the land was paid for by me Ana was supposed to own half of it after Nanay passes) while Nanay lived with us, and scavenging for plastic happens on the local dump as well as the water, pretty sure Ana's sisters had to do it themselves, as well. Note: I had to do a lot of processing on this shot as in the original the contrast of a twilight scene meant the kids were just full silhouettes, no detail, that's why it is a bit grainy.
One of the places we looked at in 2008 with an eye to renting backed onto the Estero de Tripa de Gallina which runs through Paranaque, it was a nice place but the stink was unbelievable and the river looked that BBC video.
