A friend once said, "Slum tours are best left to those who know the subject well like sociologists." This is not an unconventional opinion. Slum tours, popular in many third world countries like India, are a controversial topic in tourism debates. They are often frowned upon and viewed as exploitative and unethical. At the very least, the phrase seems to imply that poor communities are mere subjects to gawk at and treat as tourist souvenirs.


In the Philippines, where poor is the norm, there is little interest in such tours. Only a few operate them. One of the more well-known ones is Smokey Tours, a non-profit organization that offers "eye-opening day tours around Metro Manila", including bike tours, cemetery tours, and slum tours. Smokey Tours' first slum tour - the first of its kind in Southeast Asia - was held in 2011, in the now-defunct dumpsite called Smokey Mountain. Today, the organization's slum tour takes place in the 53-acre BASECO Compound, a reclaimed land 10 minutes by tricycle from historic Intramuros.


Manila's largest slum, BASECO is home to approximately 48,000 inhabitants, and children make up a sizable population. Walking on its skinny, maze-like alleys, one realizes just how massive this community is. Wooden homes, tightly squeezed next to each other, run endlessly along the banks of Pasig River. There are internet cafes, sari-sari stores, carinderia, schools, a basketball court, chapel, and a police station. To circle the community, one has to walk for two to three hours on alternating mud and pavement.

Most residents have lived here for decades. A significant number of them came from far-flung provinces in search of a job in the city. However, BASECO itself lacks diverse and lucrative work opportunities that others in the Philippine capital enjoy. If not running home-based shops, residents, particularly women, work full hours skinning garlic cloves outside their homes and packing them for large-scale distributors - an eight to nine-hour job that pays a measly Php75 (around USD1.50) a day.

Due to poverty, many residents in BASECO resort to drinking what they call "criminal water" - a play on "mineral water" -  which is basically tap water poured straight from the faucet into these plastic containers. Tap water in the Philippines isn't potable for drinking. As such, many become infected with gastrointestinal diseases, including those caused by Salmonella and E. coli.

Meanwhile, men burn driftwood to create charcoal, or turn to Pasig River to fish whatever is left of its polluted waters. Along with their parents or sometimes alone, children dive into the river at night to haul mussels that cling to foreign barges. During the day, kids would be found on the garbage-ridden shore, scavenging for scraps to sell.

BASECO has a souvenir shop showcasing slippers, bags, and accessories made from the stalks of water lilies, which grow abundantly in the river. The items are woven by hand with the help of wooden implements. Smokey Tours partners with the local community in training women to weave in order to create additional income.

Local and foreign volunteers

Majority of the tourists BASECO receives come from first-world countries like Japan and Germany - all intent on seeing a glimpse of a world starkly different from theirs. Interactions are an integral part of Smokey Tours' slum tour. Participants are encouraged to come inside the residents' homes, talk to them, and ask them questions. Some would return home with a new perspective after tours. Some would stay and become volunteers for Smokey Tours.

"That's exactly what happened to me. I wanted to make a bigger difference," Ella Daalderop, a Dutch National who's among Smokey Tours' small circle of local and foreign volunteers, says. Ella joined one of the slum tours, and in 2017, decided to move permanently to Manila to work on the ground as a volunteer. She is joined by local tour leader and BASECO resident Ate Tes, who serves as our guide for the day.

Ate Tes is one of many residents that Smokey Tours continue to tap and train as guides. They possess a wealth of insider knowledge on how the community works and help raise awareness about slums in the Philippines.

Ate Tes is among a handful of locals in BASECO who now serve as a Smokey Tours volunteer, all raising awareness about their community and what can be done to help. Volunteers are trained in an extensive program and can speak both English and Tagalog.

Since funds from tours go to community projects and pay for the training of residents ("sometimes office supplies like pens and paper", kids Ella), tour leaders are only given allowances during tours. Visitors are free to give them tips.

Asked why she continues to do pro bono work, Ate Tes replied, "I grew up here and see how these tours have helped our community. They do medical missions and educate people. Instead of turning to drugs, our kids can give back as tour leaders and raise awareness that BASECO is just like other communities. It makes me happy and fulfilled even if I have to work long hours and have little money in return," she intimates in Tagalog.
This sheer optimism isn't a rarity in slums like BASECO. Born to difficulties, the children here are oblivious to the harsh realities of their world. They would trail tourists and hold their hands. Always smiling, they find joy in the simplest things, like asking for portraits and having strangers show them how they look on camera.

Real dreams and hopes

Slums are stereotyped as dangerous sites for tourists, and as such, they are advised to avoid these areas at all cost. Growing up in a neighborhood where only a block away, a huge slum flourished for decades, I know well about this common perception. Drug peddling, thievery, knife-to-knife brawl - name a hazard and a slum has got it. Or so we think.


In immersion trips in rural slums in Quezon, I've come to know better than judge slums for their exterior appearance. My experience with these communities has so far been enlightening and heartwarming.  Residents are always happy to share their homes and feed visitors even when food on the table doesn't suffice for their needs. My day in the urban slum of BASECO was no different.

Like their more privileged counterparts, residents here have hopes. They are fighting to live each day against and with their circumstances. Some of them are fighting for a dream.

Kuya Ramil's small home doubles as the community library. He started collecting books to help children in BASECO learn how to read and write - something he says he wasn't fortunate to have.

One of them is Kuya Ramil, a porter in Divisoria, who transformed part of his ramshackle home into a community library. Stacks of used books, donated by visitors and NGOs, are piled on a wooden cabinet in his house. Residents are welcome to read and do their homework anytime on Kuya Ramil's singular table.

Like others in the community, he came from an impoverished family. From his hometown in Mindanao, he traveled to Manila in the the 1980s to job-hunt. "I only finished first grade. I do not know how to write or read. Finding work is hard. I spent weeks sleeping in Luneta before I got here. It's just me now raising my four kids. My dream is for them to have what I didn't. I want them and all children here to be educated. That's why I opened the library," he shares.

Implication versus intention

The debates will continue. There will always be those who will argue that slum tours are not necessary, especially in a country where there are omnipresent reminders of poverty. "We all know that poverty exists in the Philippines. There's no need to participate in slum tours to make ourselves aware of their plight," a comment on one blog reads.

But the questions stand: Is it enough to know to say we really understand? Can we truly understand simply by definition or common knowledge? Should we care to look or should we just look away, fearful of offending?

"That's why we don't want to call it a tour. We do not take photos and go on our own ways. In fact, we don't allow photos to be taken unless needed. And you always need to ask permission from the residents in those cases. We would rather call it an experience. Because that's what it really is. What we do is empower communities. The words "slum" and "tour"...have bad implications," says Ella.

In BASECO though, implication doesn't matter as much as individual intention. Here, it is not debates on linguistics that bring jobs, food, and healthcare aid. It's the collective effort of residents and outsiders who help them stand on their feet - on a slum tour or not - that make the difference.


Much thanks to Smokey Tours for hosting. You can learn more about Smokey Tours' slum tour on their website. 

For Women's Day, I wish I would be able to tell females out there something inspirational or heroic. But I don't.

Instead I will tell you that on that day, as women around the world celebrated their womanhood, I was at home, feeling like a bug under a glass torched by the sun's seething rays, and life is the kid that's holding the lens.

I will tell you that at 11 am, I was cleaning poop of kittens that decided they want to be un-litter trained, cooking breakfast for my child, and mopping spits of wet watercolor from here to there while my cup of coffee grows cold. That after I’m done mopping, I’d have to mop spills anew every other hour. I did this while thinking of the six client deadlines I missed again the last couple of days, and which I have to figure where to insert in my messy, chaotic life.

I will tell you that instead of triumphing over my deadlines, I have spent the past days in clinics and doctors’ offices because of a cough that isn’t caused by an infection but won’t go away. It turns out I am fine, but I also might not be, because my liver could be faulty. During these back-and-forth trips, I weighed on two different clinic’s scales and found out that whereas I used to be severely underweight before I started treatment for hyperthyroidism, I am now 10 pounds overweight.

I will tell you that while waiting in those pristine, bleach-smelling offices, I chanced upon mothers in my Facebook feed who are earning 100 fucking thousand a month and paying off all their mortgages and debts in three years. “If I can as a single mother/ breadwinner/ working mother, you can too!” they exclaim. I wondered if I am doing something wrong with my life, because as a freelancer, I now make more than double of what I used to earn in the office, but now on my second year of payments, I am only one-third through completing mine. I can’t even begin funding a six-month buffer yet or enjoy that 50-30-20 system financial gurus advise (50 percent of earnings on living expenses, 30 on savings and investment, and 20 on leisure), because 95 percent of what I earn goes to living expenses. That’s despite my only leisure being eating biweekly in a carinderia or local cafes with my daughter where average meals cost P50 to P70.

I will tell you that at that moment, I wish I could un-see those posts. They made me want to kick myself for never thinking of emergency savings and investments before getting married or bearing a kid. I didn’t bother with life insurance until my daughter was already a year old.  “I have a stable job. What could possibly go wrong?”

What does Murphy’s Law say? Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. 

I will tell you that we brought our 10-year old dog to the vet because she had been peeing blood all day, and that the doctors suspect a tumor. We can try to save her, but saving her “might not be humane because she’s too old for surgery”. I will also tell you that when we got home, one of the cats is also sick and won’t eat.

I will tell you that in the middle of all these, I wanted to cry because a voice inside me was saying, "I am so tired of this life", but I can't because my daughter might hear, and she’s the only thing in my life that really makes sense right now.

I am a woman. A mother. These are my everyday struggles - the struggles of many, too.

The world thinks mothers are deities on their own right. We put them high on a pedestal and expect them to never run out of hope and energy to nurture, soothe, and fix. Don't women have superpowers by nature?

But not every day is a heroic day for mothers. Some days are a mess. Some days you just want to get the day over with like everyone else. Some days mothers also feel overwhelmed. Weary. Helpless. On those days, like all humans, they could use a break from being reminded of their faults and being told how to run their lives. They could use some kindness and compassion - a hand, positive reinforcement, a talk. They could use a “How is life treating you today?” They could use change.

Global perception expects mothers to carry the weight of parenting and household duties on their own, whether or not she contributes financially to the household. When fathers do household chores or look after their children, they are exalted as if men are not supposed to share in mutual responsibilities or to parent. When mothers parent and do chores, we look for one tiny mistake to shame them and call them inefficient.

This Women’s Month, may we not forget the women from whom all beings come from. May we always think about the repercussions of our expectations from either sex. May we be careful in tipping over the line that glorifies the double burden many women carry and refer to it as normal, exemplary mothering/ housewife-ing, or - God forbid - martyrdom. To hand over a catastrophic amount of responsibility to women and expect them to stay in control isn't empowerment. It's stereotyping and enabling the misperception that chores and child raising are reserved only for women, and men ought not be required to partake in their share based on gender.

And we wonder why mothers are prone to burnout and postpartum depression.

May we always remember the fuel that drives equality runs on a shift in mindset. It starts with viewing both men and women as capable in the household and giving them equal tasks. There is no better place to learn equality than at home.