A Portrait of Tondo

Leftover meat scraps salvaged from the trash and recooked are stuffed in a bag that hangs on a nail outside the home’s frail wooden door. The family, like many others in the Tondo slums, will only sell the already-eaten meat for a few pesos, but it’s enough to give their sparse incomes a boost.

Squishing through mud and muck; dodging motorbikes zipping down narrow alleys; battling the trash, sweat, and smoke stench that tries to burrow deep down inside—it’s all part of Tondo. 

So are the children, who are vibrant and full of life. They sprawl out on the street and play a game with bottlecaps or jump rope or shoot hoops on a net-less rim.  

Their parents are fiercely resilient, too. An intense love compels them to work grueling hours on garbage trucks or to travel into the city to work construction in order to provide for their children.