Blind Boys » Archive » HappyPeople of Happyland by Jed Bacason

A scavenger in Happyland, a dumpsite in Tondo, Manila salvages a box spring of a bed. A good find, he said. Scavengers earn a measly average of seventy-five pesos for a day's work.
After battling fire and smoke to produce charcoal, Bert, a resident of Happyland in Tondo, Manila, rests and lights up a cigarette. Charcoal-makers here earn a meager two hundred pesos daily.
A small stick, a mock billiards table, some marbles and a little bit of imagination – these are all these children need to have a little bit of fun while their parents and older brothers and sisters endure toil under the hot sun scouring for any valuable material in the nearby Tondo dumpsite.
Like a congregation in the middle of a prayer, scavengers in Happyland, a dumpsite in Tondo, Manila, look for anything of value in a mound of garbage. Scavengers earn a measly average of seventy-five pesos for a day's work.
These kids will soon pick up their tools and scavenge in the dumpsite in Tondo, Manila – just like what the older members of their families do. For now, they try to spend time and act as kids.
A charcoal-maker and his wife couple sits idly outside their makeshift house in a complex inside the dumpsite in Tondo, Manila. The couple is expecting their third child.
These kids, along with their parents, sleep on the dump site in Tondo, Manila. They just scour for pieces of cardboard to sleep in. Complaint, villagers say, is unheard of from these children.
This extended family lives on a moderately-sized house near the breakwater in Tondo, manila. The eighty-year old matriarch spends her time reading a bible while the middle-aged daughters attend to their families. The male family members are off to work producing charcoal or scavenging at the nearby dumpsite.
Two kids living in the dumpsite complex in Tondo, Manila share a toy bike scavenged from the mountain of garbage. Their parents scour the dumpsite daily for any valuable material to be sold at junkshops or for home use.

The experience that I had going to Happyland is not one of those that slide into oblivion easily. Learning how the people living here survive daily is a real eye-opener and changes how one views one’s life and the choices he makes.

Happyland comes from the word hapilan, a local term for a dump site – and it’s an ironic name for one. Most of the scavengers in Happyland come from Sitio Damayan in Barangay 105 in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. Aside from scavenging, people here also work as charcoal makers. The kilns are inside the residential complex and smoke from producing charcoal envelops the whole community.

Happyland is . The stench from Happyland is overwhelming that I cannot fathom how these folks spend their lives everyday there. The smoke from charcoal kilns is so thick it can suffocate instantly. I had to be constantly reminded by the Philippine flags all over the place that Sitio Damayan is still a part of our country.

What struck me most is the fact that these people, though living in sub-human conditions, are a happy lot. They are wearing the same smile you see with people at a designer coffee shop. Scavengers earn a measly seventy-five pesos for a day’s work while the charcoal makers are better off with two hundred pesos.

I complain, almost too often, about anything and everything and these folks taught me to appreciate life. It’s unfortunate that I did not give anything back. But for what it’s worth, I’d rather remember the smiles and the kindness of these people than anything else. With these photos and words alone, I cannot make these people’s lives any better. One man can only do so much to change the world, but I can start sowing the seed and hopefully, something bigger will come from it.

I was a little saddened by the experience. I can go home and escape from the place but the folks there open their eyes every morning to the same living conditions. What I felt most was anger over the fact that these places exist and we allow these to happen. Humans are intelligent creatures. This should not happen.

Kanika Nagpal

This is a hard story. Extremely touching, realistic, and brutally self reflective. The juxtaposition of negative circumstance beside a positive inner world is hopeful on a level thats exhaustingly hard to digest.
I love this series.
Kudos to your photography Jed, for the sake of awareness as well as for photography and concept itself.

Dec 08, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

Smruthi Gargi Eswar

I have been to Happy Land here in Manila. And Tondo on the whole has so many stories with in it. This Photo essay is very special, and has done a great capturing the everyday irony of Tondo.

Dec 08, 2009 @ 5:48 pm

Akira Liwanag

Nice set of photos Jed! I like how the effect of film added up to the portraits of these beautiful pictures.

Greetings from Manila!

Dec 08, 2009 @ 6:16 pm

abhi

you’ve done your part in your own way jed. it’s a really good story, thank you!

Dec 08, 2009 @ 9:18 pm

Dag Goering

Great work Jed. You obviously engage with your subjects in a very good way. I also like the honest, no bullshit, self-questioning text. Keep up the good work.

Dec 08, 2009 @ 9:35 pm

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Dec 08, 2009 @ 9:59 pm

Vatsala

I haven’t read the text yet, I decided not to. Lovely portraits. But I wish you would’ve published a tighter edit … some repetition up here. Also, there’s something funny happening in the second last image in the way it’s been treated. What’s the halo all around the figure?

Dec 13, 2009 @ 1:48 am

I read this quote today and thought about your series immediately:
‘It is not our condition, but the caliber of our soul, that makes us happy’ – Voltaire

Dec 19, 2009 @ 4:57 pm