essay: Philippines

Philippines- a beautiful tourist destination or a home on the mountain of trash



Philippines! If you hear this word you think of the beautiful island with white beaches, wellness oases and a warm see perfect for dining and other great activities. Furthermore, you think about the palms, the warm temperatures, relaxing vacation with massages. Moreover you could imaging the beautiful flora and fauna, the mangrove and the exotic. But if you just keep this in your mind you forget the realitiy, the dramatically increased population, the acute housing scarcity and the wide gap between rich and poor.

More young people than old ones live in the Philippines. We guess that this is a very good point but you have to remember that there are not so many jobs in the country for all people. So the majority is unemployed. They are getting poor and have to live a life in poverty. Besides this it could happened that they turn to crime. That is why they have to steal food or clothing because they have not enough money. Moreover they could not afford a flat and so they have to move into slums or live on the garbage dump and from it respectively. In Cebu more than 3000 people are living on the rubbish. The mountain of trash is their home. They built houses from the material other people throw away. They sleep, work and bring their children into world there. They have to filter recyclable materials like paper, plastic and metal under inhume conditions like enormous heat and odors. Besides this there is a thick toxic smoke and as a consequence the people have red eyes and lung diseases. On top of that, the recycling company pay them a pittance. The next fact is that this company uses bulldozer which do not pay attention to the kids and so it could happened that 40 kids are dying every year. Furthermore the people there suggest that children are a present from God. It is true but not in this case. On the contrary, they are not because more children need more food, more clothing, more place and the parents could not afford this to them. The main problem is that the Catholic Church welcomes many children and the people are deeply religious there. Furthermore the Catholic Church forbids the use of contraceptives. So it is a recipe for disaster. Also the women have no right and less right respectively. The man is the boss of the family and every member have to do what he says. But the most are not well educated. That is a further problem because they did not know any thing about family planning or how to use a contraceptive. So some people from organizations like " Herz fuer Kinder" or from national institutions want to help the poorest people of society. They teach them how they could help themselves, for example how to not get pregnant or when they are having a child that they have to see a doctor and go to hospital. Furthermore they explain how to earn some money or something about health and disease reduction. They started some campaigns and the government want to improve the education at school, want to spread the knowledge of family planning and also the infrastructure.



But it do not seemed to be enough. A lot of people from other countires did not know the problems and the bad situation the lowest class of society have there. People just think about the positive side of this country and did not notice the poverty. But now you know about this problems and maybe you could go some ways towards to help this people in extremity.