In the Philippines, a cemetery where the destitute living try to survive

Some 6.000 people populate the 54 hectares of the North Cemetery in the Philippine capital, which has seen at least one million bodies pass through its gates.

A foam mattress, a few shelves, a TV, photo frames, an angel statue and a child's coffin used as a table furnish the cabin of Mrs. Cuetara, 36. She lives here with her partner and their two children.

With a meager income of about fifty dollars a month from selling candy, drinks and cookies to visitors to the cemetery, Laileah Cuetara sees no way out.

And that's even including the thirty dollars she and her partner will receive on Sunday for each of the 30 graves they take care of all year round, a small bonus given for All Saints' Day.

"With the high prices of basic goods lately, it is very difficult to improve our living conditions," says Ms. Cuetara, who has lived in the cemetery since a family conflict forced her to leave her suburban Manila residence in 2008.

According to former parliamentarian Luis Raymund Villafuerte, three million people lack access to decent housing in the Manila metropolitan area. The United Nations estimated in a 2023 report that up to 22 million inhabitants of the archipelago could be affected by 2040.

Priscilla Buan, 51, was born in the cemetery. She even raised her children there, among the graves.

But despite the grim atmosphere, it's the demolition orders that frighten him the most. And the threats are carried out at least once a year.

"When we hear about a demolition order, we remove our belongings (...) We hide (our devices) in another mausoleum so that they are not spotted," she explains.

Ms. Buan and her four family members sleep on two raised graves inside a mausoleum, the rest of the space of which is furnished as a living room with a sofa, storage unit and appliances.

The woman in her fifties, who is part of the third generation of residents of the cemetery, sells snacks and other small items through the gate of the vault.

"Even if I wanted to, I don't have enough money to buy a house."

Population increase

Vicente Eliver, of the Kapatiran-Kaularan Foundation, notes a "worrying" increase in the number of people living in cemeteries, where gravediggers and their families used to live. And no one else.

"But their children got married, had children and grandchildren who also decided to live there," Mr. Eliver, whose organization has been providing aid and educational programs to residents since 2010, told AFP.

Most of them claim to have permission to occupy the crypts or build huts on the graves, as long as they take care of them.

The occupants connect to the electrical grid for power and pay 3 pesos (4 cents) for 4 liters of water from nearby wells.

The director of the North Cemetery, Daniel Tan, nevertheless assured AFP that this arrangement was not intended to last in the long term.

"It's a cemetery, it's for the dead and not for the living, so people really don't have the right to live here," he emphasizes.

Mr. Tan clarifies that the grave guards are tolerated for their work, and suggests that the city is trying to relocate them, without giving details.

Laileah Cuetara, who showed AFP the permission granted by the owner of the grave where she has settled, confirms that life in the cemetery is no one's first choice.

Her 11-year-old son is bullied at school because of his address, while her six-year-old daughter endlessly scribbles drawings of houses that cover their makeshift home.

"Everyone here dreams of a house," said the woman in her thirties. "But it's hard, very hard."