Visit to the Eco-Ikot Centre and Smokey Mountain, Manila, Philippines
Visited the Eco-Ikot Centre and Smokey Mountain, Manila, Philippines. 3-4 July2025.
What an incredible week. One of many activities with ASEAN Korea Centre.
In the midst of a closed land fill, widely known as Smokey Mountain, humans find their niche. Small eateries are everywhere.
Social NGO, Eco-Ikot has been doing great ground work at the foot of Smokey Mountain. Even small bottles have a value with clear PET bottles preferred to coloured bottles. Metals have the highest value.
Collecting points that can be exchanged for household goods helps to stretch the peso further. Eco-Iko provides opportunities to turn trash to cash.
Even in a low income area, there are obvious signs of modernity; cell phones, solar panels, security cameras, a mobile library, a clinic and even a ‘Lotte’!. Kids playing video games in a small shop. Electricity cables run overhead like a spider web. Old tires flattened to become road humps. A large garden on top of an incomplete water tank of what was suppose to be a sewage treatment plant.
Although Smokey Mountain was closed in 2005 and low cost high rise apartments now abound and its sad to hear that after 20 years, there are a few hundred people still live on top of the mountain, waiting for relocation compensation or even an apartment. Such is life. Be grateful. You can choose your parents!
What a sight to see. The mountain is covered by vegetation. Perhaps that is partly helping to hold the trash mountain together.
