Another slum fire in Manila, Philippines: neoliberal gentrification

Manila, philippines slum fire (Mark Cristino:EPA) Jan 4 2016

Under neoliberalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism, slums are growing by an estimated 6 million people a year due to the expropriation of farmers & rural workers by multinational mining & agribusiness enterprises & by the lack of affordable housing. An estimated one billion people live in them now but that’s probably more a wild guess based on rural migration to cities, only includes illegal shantytowns & excludes the substandard tenements the urban poor have always lived in.

Neoliberal policies incorporate rural areas with huge agribusiness plantations & mining enterprises that lay waste entire ecosystems but also include urban gentrification & development schemes like resorts, swanky shopping malls, golf courses, casinos, IT centers, condominiums, convention halls catering to a well-heeled clientele. The policies dictate that there’s no place for people to live anymore unless they have big bucks.

This process is going on in every city around the world but it’s operating at Mach speed in Manila, Philippines after the supreme court (in obeisance to the IMF) usurped laws governing public property (where most of the slums are built) & declared they wanted the slums cleared by December 2015. That would affect an estimated 23 million slum residents in metropolitan Manila. Resistance to that by slum residents has been so forceful in Manila, that the city finds itself behind schedule–but not for lack of trying.

Every year there have been several slum fires which fire officials–who often show up hours late to the scene–attribute to pirated power, flammable building materials, use of propane for cooking. Fire forensics are seldom reported–actually never reported. Residents most often claim the cause was arson–& with damn good cause. This is all true in slums around the world.

With no provision for affordable alternative housing, residents simply return to their burned out shanties & rebuild–or they go homeless. That’s what’s going on in this photo. On New Year’s Day, there was a fire in the Tondo slum district of Manila & these kids are camping out in their gutted house. Manila has the highest rate of homelessness in the world with an estimated 70,000 children living on the streets & 1.2 million throughout the Philippines.

The reports on the New Year’s Day fire in Tondo–an area with squalid slums targeted for gentrification–are par for the course. What caused it depends entirely on which report you read–three of which cite three different fire marshals at the scene. At least 1,000 shanties burned down. Some reports said cause unknown. Others said it was from a wayward firecracker or a “rocket lit by revelers” which hit an abandoned hut. Some say the cause of the fire is still under investigation–which is where it will remain until hell freezes over.

It makes a good story for fire officials to claim the cause is the fault of residents. It actually sounds quite credible that flammable building materials & propane stoves would cause repeated conflagrations. But it stinks to high hell when they repeatedly occur in areas targeted for expeditious gentrification & development. Residents themselves accuse authorities of arson. If that’s the case, some intrepid reporter or detective should investigate & bring charges for property destruction but most importantly for jeopardizing the lives of thousands of people, including children, elderly, disabled, infirm, & making them homeless.

Housing is a human right.

(Photo by Mark Cristino/EPA)