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In 2014, Metropolitan Manila was ranked 18^th in the world’s most populated urban populations, with an estimated 12 million residents (United Nations 2017).

As noted, there are roughly four million slum-dwellers residing in the 17 cities and districts that comprise Metropolitan Manila (Ballesteros 2011). This number of slum inhabitants is expected to grow by 3.4 per cent annually, with figures projected to reach 6.5 million in 2020, and a staggering 13 million in 2050 (Ballesteros 2011). Latest figures show that one out of 10 people live in Manila’s slums (Ballesteros 2011). While there is no strict definition for Philippine slums, some general markers have been identified, which essentially refers to inadequate living conditions: “Slums are defined as buildings or areas that are deteriorated, hazardous, unsanitary or lacking in standard conveniences. These are also defined as the squalid, crowded or unsanitary conditions under which people live, irrespective of the physical state of the building or area” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2003 p. 215). In terms of location, Manila slum communities are “generally dispersed, located wherever there is space and opportunity” (United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2003 p. 215).

In contrast to the favelas of Brazil, the kampungs of Malaysia and Indonesia, or the aashwa’i of Egypt, the most popular word for slums and slum inhabitants in the Philippines remains the English term, squatter, converted phonetically into Tagalog as “iskwater.” As Erhard Berner (2000 p. 556) has found in his longstanding research on Philippine slums, the terms “slum,” “squatter,” and

“urban poor” blend into each other in actual usage. More specific Tagalog words for Manila slums might refer to location or spatial description, as quoted below from the UN special report on global slums:

§ iskwater (a physically disorganised collection of shelters made of light and often visually unappealing materials where poor people reside);

§ estero (narrower than sewers and associated with a bad smell);

§ eskinita (alleys that fit only one person at a time);

§ looban (meaning inner areas where houses are built very close to each other and often in a manner not visible to the general view of the city);

§ dagat-dagatan (areas frequently flooded);

§ “Bedspacer” (subtenant occupants of bunk bedding rental accommodation, four or six to a small room, usually young women who have come to the city looking for work.

(United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2003 p.

10)

It is important to note that not all those who live in slums can be classified as poor, especially given their inclusion in the formal and informal economy.

Berner (1997) notes the diverse composition of the urban poor in Manila:

“The so-called urban poor – i.e., people living in slums and illegal settlements' – include not only the unemployed, underemployed and members of the informal sector but also major sections of the middle classes, like policemen, teachers, nurses, office clerks, and sales personnel, among others. Simultaneous inclusion and exclusion characterizes the urban poor's relationship with the metropolis.”

(Berner 1997 p. 124).

The production of urban slum spaces in the Philippines reveals a history of spatial injustice with its history of colonial occupation and segregation. We can trace this development from the period of colonial occupation up to the present period of stark inequality among Manila’s urban inhabitants. As with many cities of the Third World, colonial occupation is embedded in the urban development of Metropolitan Manila. As Epifanio San Juan (1990 p. 189) powerfully notes:

“For the truth is that it was not through the clearing of wilderness to establish guilds and market-fairs, but through organized violence and the forcible imposition of feudal Christianity and theocratic authority that the scaffolding of the Philippine cities –not just Manila – was erected.”

The construction of Manila was ushered in by the establishment of the “walled city” of Intramuros, which became the fortress of the Spanish colonial rulers from 1571. The configuration of spaces around Intramuros indicates social segregation during the colonial period (Reed 1978; Alcazaren et al. 2011).

Outside the walled city—aptly called Extramuros—the indios (Filipino natives) were segregated along with other non-European inhabitants of Manila (Lico 2003). The streets of Extramuros were racially segregated: “Dilao for the Japanese, Parian and Binondo for the Chinese, and Arrabales for the indios"

(Lico 2003 p. 22).

The Spanish colonial period saw the forging of Manila as the Philippine archipelago’s economic and political capital, with the surrounding areas of Intramuros serving as the main port for the galleon trade (Arn 1995). As Manila became the country’s entrepot centre for economic activity and international relations, more and more people took up residence in the city (Arn 1995). A century after Spanish occupation, Manila’s population rose from 2,000 to a hundred thousand residents (Arn 1995). The population of the arrabales

(suburbs) outside the walls of Intramuros steadily grew in spaces near port and factory areas (Doeppers 1984; Alcazaren et al. 2011).

Upon American occupation in 1898 following a mock Spanish-American war, Manila remained of prime importance to the new colonisers. In 1905, American architect Daniel Burnham, with his partner Pierce Anderson, proposed to configure Manila under a “City Beautiful” plan, which “focused on the creation of a strong central civic core, from which radiated an enlarged and ordered city linked by grand radial and axial boulevards and embellished by plazas, fountains, parks, and playgrounds” (Alcazaren et al. 2011 p. 5). The plan arguably “sought to portray the colonial capital as an ordered, hierarchical, formal, and therefore a civilized city” (Cabalfin 2014).

While some aspects of the Burnham Plan for Manila were initiated such as new residential areas in the suburbs, informal settlements and crowding started building up around the port areas of Tondo. It was in the 1930s that the American colonial government identified Manila slums, areas that were described in official documents as “breeding grounds for disease, crime, and sedition” (Alcazaren et al. 2011 p. 9). According to Cristina Evangelista Torres (2010 p. 71) the Burnham plan essentially addressed the needs of Americans living in the Manila, arguing that:

“Nowhere in the plan was there mention of upgrading Manila’s slums where people, living in bamboo and nipa huts, were vulnerable to fire and epidemic outbreaks. Manila’s poor were to remain in their wretched homes while government funds were spent on the upgrade of infrastructure for business, improvement of government buildings, and creation of rest and recreation facilities that ordinary Filipinos were probably too poor to afford and enjoy.”

(Torres 2010 pp. 71–72).

The succeeding years saw the steady rise of slum communities in Manila, which American officials and the Philippine Commonwealth responded to with

slum-clearing and relocation projects, interrupted by the destruction of the capital during World War II (Alcazaren et al. 2011). The post-war years and the granting of Philippine independence from the United States in 1946 resulted in the surge of even more migrants to the capital (Alcazaren et al. 2011). The ruins of Intramuros, which were completely destroyed by bombings in the war, became a popular squatting site for rural migrants, “which provided settlers with ready-made walls via the ruins of old Spanish-era convents and churches”

(Alcazaren et al. 2011 p. 62).

The state of Manila slums as most residents recognise it today was profoundly shaped by the rapid urbanisation in the 1960s and the modernising projects launched under the dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos (Caoili 1988;

Pinches 1994; Shatkin 2004; Ortega 2016a, 2016b). It was during the Marcos regime (1965-1986) that the 17 cities and districts that now constitute Metropolitan Manila was consolidated in 1975 (Caoili 1988; Alcazaren et al.

2011). The popular slogan, “Marcos means more roads!” captures the spatial urban development associated with the Marcos period (Alcazaren et al. 2011).

Upon declaring Martial Law in 1972, Marcos railroaded urban modernising projects with the aim of attracting multinational investments (Naerssen 2003). It is significant to note that the Marcos urban projects were supported by a huge

$2.5 billion loan from the World Bank (Naerssen 2003; Ortega 2016b).

Squatting was criminalised during the Marcos period under Presidential Decree 772 (repealed in 1997), which justified the government’s aggressive mass relocations and evictions (Arn 1995; Berner 2000). Davis (2006) cites the case of Manila as exemplary in the regularity and scale of squatter evictions during the Marcos period. Mass evictions were infamously carried out during international events, such as the 1974 Miss Universe Pageant and 1975 World Bank-IMF conference (Arn 1995; Davis 2006). Compared to the $13 million spent on housing construction in 1976, the Marcos administration allotted $360

million for the World Bank-IMF conference towards the construction of new hotels for the international delegates (Arn 1995). First Lady Imelda Marcos, who became Governor of Manila, thought of squatters as eyesores and as “plain landgrabbers” (Berner 2000 p. 559).

The Marcos years laid the foundations for the state of Manila at present, as well as the very configuration of the Philippine economy as oriented towards exports and dependent on foreign loans and investments (Naerssen 2003). Succeeding administrations continued to ramp up projects that aimed to make Manila a global urban centre at the expense of displacing the urban poor (Shatkin 2004).

Gavin Shatkin (2004 p. 2479) notes the neoliberal vision that underpins the government’s urban policies: “The Philippine government has cut its budget, decentralised the provision of infrastructure and services, and focused on attracting investment through the development of trunk infrastructure.” Similarly, Arnisson Andre Ortega (2016a p. 35) argues that the development of properties financed by local and international developers in recently gentrified districts of Manila is intertwined with the decline of informal communities in these areas.

The global facelift of Manila, according to Ortega (2016a p. 36), is inseparable from the state’s “urban warfare against informality.”

Alongside the state’s violent efforts to rid Manila of slums, it is important to note that slum inhabitants constantly stake their right to the city by strongly resisting demolitions. Noteworthy anthropological studies (Jocano 1975; Berner 1997;

Antolihao 2004; Lagman 2012) emphasise that slum inhabitants are not just victims of the state, but consistently stake their claims to inhabit the city. In recent history, a memorable display of the urban poor’s collective force, regarded with disdain by the middle and upper classes, was the urban event called “EDSA 3.” In this 2001 uprising, the urban poor took to the streets to protest the ouster of populist President Joseph Estrada whose persona was imagined to be pro-poor (Garrido 2008). Paradoxically, the urban poor is a huge

resource that politicians tap for votes during election season (Hutchison 2007), even though their land rights are largely ignored. Despite the state’s efforts to eradicate squatter settlements, these spaces have become integral to Manila’s urban landscape, and in fact, to its very survival. As Berner (1997 p. 169) puts it, Manila slums and its inhabitants are ”…fundamental rather than marginal.

The globalized metropolitan economy is heavily subsidised by the existence of squatter colonies, and cannot function - let alone be competitive - without this subsidy.”