The Most “DANGEROUS” Slum in Tondo, Manila – HAPPYLAND, Philippines 🇵🇭

The Most “DANGEROUS” Slum in Tondo, Manila – HAPPYLAND, Philippines 🇵🇭

40% of Manila’s 23 million 
residents live in slums and   much of that population is concentrated in Tondo Home to over 700,000 people 
it’s a place of contrast Poverty and hardship a part of daily life here… it’s just actually so sad …but so is resilience and an 
unbreakable sense of community Today we’re heading into the heart 
of Tondo with the help of Jocelyn,   a local resident and volunteer for 
Bless The Children – a life-changing   organization that supports the 
kids growing up in this area Together we’ll meet the people who are often 
overlooked and challenge the stereotypes that   have given Tondo it’s reputation as 
Manila’s most dangerous neighbourhood So I really hope that you can hear me right now 
because the traffic is so loud, as you can hear,   but basically this place is right next to a 
massive motorway so I’m sorry if it’s very loud But, Jocelyn explained to us that a lot of 
the people here make money from collecting   old recyclable goods, sorting them and 
then selling them and the price that they   get per day is only around 300 pesos which 
usually isn’t enough so today we’re going   to go through and we’re going to learn exactly 
what they can sort and sell for that 300 pesos All from the tyre and also my shoes! Wow It’s from the tyre Your shoes are made from this? Yeah! Wow Thank you! Thank you salamat! Behind me the guy is actually sorting out 
the plastic and he’s separating the paper   from the plastic because he gets different prices Paper is a lot less than plastic so 
he’s sorting them out in different bags He’s going to take them to the center and 
then get them weighed and then get paid So not only are they collecting this 
rubbish and bringing it to the center   and getting paid but they’re also 
clearing up the streets of Manila Here you can see them separating plastic So even though young children came here for 
helping their parents to earn money because   they want to finish their study They want to go to school for their parents So we just heard that they 
get paid for 1 kilo 2 pesos The people here don’t like to pay for 
water because it’s very expensive so   they use a source from the 
government – is that right? Yes it’s only a leak So ah it’s a leak So there’s a pipe on the floor 
that’s leaking and the people are   just scooping out buckets of it because 
it’s clean water that’s flowing to the   city but you have to pay for it if 
you have it flowing to your house So they just take it in a bucket, use 
it for their cooking, their cleaning   and their washing and there’s just people 
on the side of the street having a shower It’s pretty crazy to see actually Wow Yeah already this is um truly heartbreaking to see When you live your day-to-day life you 
don’t even think about this and seeing   it firsthand it just hits you on a different level So here is another entrance of Happyland Here in Happy Land their community is small but 
the residents that live here are 20,000 residents Wow Yes Not including the number of children Maybe if you include it, it 
becomes double or triple numbers Yes, because one family here, some of them 
they have five, seven or more children Wow so there’s 20,000 adults adults only wow yeah so here you can see a small house this costs around 1,500 pesos per 
month and a lot of people come to   the city to find cheaper housing 
and accommodation in this area but   they’re living amongst this so it’s 
really really sad to see actually here you can see an example of 
someone’s house so they live up here i don’t know if you can see but downstairs 
is more garbage to be sorted I think so literally people are 
living amongst so much trash their rooms up there and because it’s their job   to sort it I guess they’re used to 
it but no one should live like this like no one this is really sad i actually feel well emotional about it same hello! so Jocelyn just told me that around six or 
seven people can live in a room like this this is one room one room seven people can live in a room 
that size that is honestly so small how do they do it? and it must be so hot yeah oh my goodness this little box is like a router in a box 
and you just put in 5 pesos and you can   get two hours of internet usage because a 
lot of the people don’t have enough money   here to pay for a data plan but then they 
can access the internet so it’s pretty good yeah that’s really good i need that sometimes i must say the kids are absolutely 
adorable they keep running up to us   but we’ve been advised not to 
show many of their faces for   obvious reasons so we’re going to keep it 
quite respectful and just show the adults hey hello you see the cat so we’ve noticed so far that there 
are cats everywhere but that has   been the common theme during our 
time here in Philippines so far they love cats they just love them pancake oh I thought you 
said your name was Frankie look how cute they are i think they want some pancakes what’s your name Matthew Matthew awww Matthew hello pagpag this is the pagpag store 
and she is famous in YouTube famous in YouTube? yeah she is the pagpag queen pagpag queen? yeah the area that we wasn’t allowed to film 
in is basically just a huge place full   of bags of old leftover takeaways 
like Jollibee, McDonald’s and they   basically take all the chicken and the 
bones and clean them and recook them hello oh beautiful! and yeah clean them and cook them 
a couple of times and make a dish   called pagpag and it’s really famous here 
in the area because the people can’t afford   to buy pieces of chicken so they just use 
the leftovers and make a new meal from it they offered it to us to try but I 
don’t think my stomach can handle it   because theirs is very very strong they 
eat it from a young age but mine’s not but it does look quite delicious actually wow oh it’s hot so this is it guys pagpag you can see it’s kind of bones and old fried 
pieces and it’s called pagpag because… I’ll just put it down thank you it’s called pagpag because they bang it on 
their arm when they take it out the bags to   take off all of the debris like the old bits 
of rice and bread before they cook it again i think pagpag is the motion 
of banging it on yourself hello it’s okay? what’s your name? Avelene oh you’re so beautiful Avalene! you can see here they have all the bones 
that they’re sorting and they’re deep frying smells good! adobo adobo wow so Avelene is known as the 
pagpag queen here in this town she is famous I think even on YouTube and she’s   so beautiful she looks like 
she’s doing a brilliant job beautiful beautiful maganda maganda wow one order is 30 pesos 30 pesos? so they take the old bones and then 
they fry them in really hot oil I guess to kill all the bacteria and then it’s 
a really delicious snack for everyone here everybody eats it and it’s really really busy everyone’s coming to the store to buy 
it even really young children have it so I guess they build up a tolerance in 
their stomach to eat food like this from   a very young age which is quite lucky really 
because we can’t handle anything like this thank you in this little machine they can 
get clean fresh drinking water 1 peso or 5 pesos depending on the size so this is a kindergarten school so it’s free schooling for the kids here oh 
beautiful and that’s from the government yeah? from the government yeah so the government is good for Tondo or not? yes okay the government do a 
lot of good things for Tondo i’m happy to hear that she’s so pretty bye-bye aww Josa josa means beautiful as well josa oh wow josa josa Rhea getting compliments already no her she’s beautiful her hair is so long she also tell that you’re so beautiful thank you everyone’s so nice here honestly we’ve been in Manila a few days and we’ve 
been walking through the towns and the   cities and the people are really friendly 
but this just feels like a whole new level everyone’s so friendly, everyone’s smiling, 
everyone’s coming up for fist bumps it just goes to show you 
that the reputation that’s   here as the most dangerous place it’s not true hello wow look at this hello oh chicken! chicken chicken chicken bubble oh what can I do for you? i don’t need any chicken today 
but it does look good before before they have a gate here but because of 
typhoon it’ss broken you see now happyland now Welcome to happyland – Tondo Manila! yay! because of typhoon it’s broken so maybe letter A it’s in the junk shop already a typhoon broke that gate it’s crazy Why don’t you have a game with them? i mean I’ll try but I’m not any 
good at basketball if I’m honest i may be very tall but okay i’ll try thank you get involved get involved! they ask what’s the name of your YouTube? oh come on it’s broken yeah yeah yeah i tell you what Filipinos 
are so good at basketball yeah they are good in basketball so as you can see even though the   people are living in really bad 
conditions everyone is so happy they’re just playing their sports Sam’s joined in it’s really nice to see boiling hot though like boiling hot but hello nice dance! the kids are so adorable i can’t my heart honestly the people 
here are just so lovely i’m really really glad that we came to 
see this side of Manila and not just a   touristy spots because this is really how 
people are living in the city and I think   it’s really important to point it out and 
come here and experience it for yourself look at this she’s putting on armbands because 
she doesn’t want to be brown and then I’m   laying literally in the sun every 
day to try and get a tan it’s crazy use umbrella always can we swap? yeah can we! we can swap please come on Sam! you miss it thank you he said “I suck.” Did he? he was like “You suck.” Oh my god that’s so funny a little kid 
just come over to Sam and said “You suck.” just been mugged off i just missed about 50 shots in a row so I’m 
just going to walk away with my head like this a little kid said that I suck as well so just to 
add a little bit of salt in the wound you know but the people here are honestly so nice really friendly i feel like more friendly than 
in the city of Manila where we   were yesterday everyone was still really nice but hello my friend yeah everyone here is lovely so it 
just goes to show that sometimes you   could be living in the worst way but 
it’s all about your attitude to life 100% oh wow what’s this? hello well if I lived here I know 
exactly where I would be every day it’s really cool in there and there’s 
a guy playing Candy Crush as well on   a computer which I’ve never seen before in my life he’s on like level 1,00 or 
something so he’s got to be a pro so 50% of the people here are scavengers 
and they take from the trash, but the other   50% they take carts out to the street and 
they’ll sell different kinds of street food so they can sell ice cream, 
peanuts, what else fruit? green mango green mango yeah so if you’re on the street   sometimes in this area you 
will see them on the side try and buy some if you’re in the area yeah so even though there’s a lot of poverty it’s 
still a really happy place like the spirit of the   people is still really high and I think that’s 
just a a testament to their character really all the daily struggles they 
go through every day and yet   they’re still so smiley and so welcoming and happy so yet another thing that we take for 
granted in this world is fresh drinking water yeah so the residents here have to 
sell at least 2.5kg of recycled trash   just to buy that small bucket of water so 
imagine how long it takes to sort that out It must take so long going through 
endless trash just to get a tiny   bucket of water and then in England 
we have it just coming through the tap We leave it on when we brush our teeth 
and we don’t really appreciate it and we have water parks and things like 
that it’s just so much waste you know it’s really sad it just makes you appreciate 
everything that you have It’s really eye opening and extremely sad yeah absolutely and it’s even more sad because the people 
here are so nice so it just feels like   what the hell in the world did they do 
to deserve this struggle i don’t know hello hello hello hi how are you? i’m fine good oh who’s this little cutie? hello oh gorgeous little thing oh maganda! oh my god you’re gorgeous so gorgeous byebye sorry I won’t film your house so we’re just walking down oh 
I’m sorry i’m sorry i’m going so we’re just walking through an area now 
where a lot of people are living and it’s   really dark so I don’t know if you’ll be able to 
see me but these conditions are truly shocking it’s kind of like a tunnel and there’s all 
these tiny rooms to the sides and there’s   multiple people living in one room and 
everyone’s just looking out and smiling i’m not going to film inside 
the houses because I want to   be respectful but yeah you’ll just 
have to leave it to your imagination you can see where I am right now but uh yeah oh god lots of dogs lots of cats oh we’re back in the light wow and it’s boiling boiling hot this is a lot to take in yeah i can’t ever imagine this I didn’t prepare myself for this no you can see the sweat on us… living 
in that all day every day with no air con,   limited amount of electricity, you can’t 
just take a shower whenever you want it’s making me feel really emotional actually yeah me too i might have to 
turn this off for a minute hello hello hello hello oh baby hello oh my god hello so a few years ago there was a 
huge huge fire here and I can   see why because there’s literally 
so many wires just crossing over there’s probably no health and safety checks   done on it and the fire hurt a 
lot of people so it’s just mad so that was just an example of one 
of the houses that we could show   you because there was no one inside but 
you could see how small it actually was it’s literally a tiny room,   probably about 2 meres wide each way and 
seven or eight people can live in there don’t throw it at me! hello oh they’re cute hello they’re so cute what’s your name? hey hello hello what’s your name? Hi kuya means brother Hi kuya he said hi brother basketball court and also 
training for the roosters for the fighting yeah? wow look at this hello guys hey hey wow kids are so friendly here so this is a converted basketball court that   they’re using for cock fighting 
now this is something that is   uh very traditional here in Philippines and in 
some other Southeast Asian countries as well oh she’s so cute that little girl hello maganda! maganda means beautiful and Rhea’s heard it 
many times and she said it probably even more hello hello bro hello bro hello bro hey wow good jump think this is going to be Rhea 
for the rest of the day now don’t need to do the rest of the tour this is us gang gang gang gang gang gang look how happy they are i love it look at his basketball jersey, how long it is! bye-bye aww bye-bye give a high five! oh byebye you’re so heavy you’re too heavy! ready one two three welcome to the Philippines no, noone done it wow I’m really out of breath now enjoying enjoying yes! oh my god my heart they were such lovely kids honestly I feel so emotional 
right now just playing with   them seeing all their little smiley faces i must say most of the animals we’ve 
seen have been really well looked after well fed, well groomed it’s really nice to see hello hello little chicky they want your nose Rhea Okay one minute I take it off yeah here we go you can change no I love your features in Asia yeah? I want them so much he said “Even though I’m dry I’m not cute.” oh look at this fish nice fish oh he’s got the crabs as well shrimp yummy yummy yummy hello hello hello morning hello morning morning good morning i can’t believe they’ve actually still got 
street names here so even in these small alleys hey man they must be able to receive post 
because they’ve got street names impressive they have a street name hello boys hey what are you doing? hello what are you playing? wow facebook? hey man wow what’s this? nba nba nba? they love basketball see you guys you love basketball yeah? yeah oh what’s this? it’s like a spring roll vinegar oh it’s really nice what’s this called? mmm that’s really good you can have this i’m still full from breakfast so this style of food is called turo 
turo and it’s because they come and   they can just take what they want from here 
because a lot of them don’t have a kitchen me and Sam have been eating this 
literally every single day in Manila breakfast lunch and dinner it’s delicious isn’t it i think we took you in our last video 
was it? to our favourite one here say hello Maganda maganda go with us you come with us? so as you can see there is a lot of stuff going on   here there’s basketball games 
everyone’s having so much fun they even have the lottery sadly our time in Happyland has come to an end   but I can honestly say it’s been 
one of the best experiences ever the people here are absolutely 
amazing, honestly, the energy everyone’s so friendly it’s just 
felt so heartwarming to be here   with all these beautiful people but we 
do have another stop on our itinerary we’re going to be heading to Smoky 
Mountain but we’ve got to take a   jeep to get there because it’s a 
little bit far away so let’s go okay watch out hello our first time in a tricycle in Philippines oh it’s hot guys i need some of this this doesn’t feel safe it feels so low to the ground got all these lorries going 
past you can probably hear them wow this is a day full of 
first experiences isn’t it? yeah it’s been amazing so far though yeah i I couldn’t recommend 
this tour highly enough no honestly it’s like I don’t want to 
say it’s been an amazing day because   what I’ve seen is really sad 
but the spirit in those people I just can’t imagine myself ever being 
able to live like that and be so happy i mean they do still struggle with problems 
and the reason that it is known as a dangerous   area is because a lot of the people are on 
drugs because they want to escape the reality can’t blame them and some of them have guns and there’s 
some petty crime but over the recent   years it’s got a lot better so it 
doesn’t feel unsafe to me at all i mean we weren’t there at night, obviously,   but don’t let it put you off 
coming and experiencing it the money that you pay towards this tour really 
does help the people there and it’s really   important to try and support the local people 
whenever you’re traveling in a country so yeah thank you oh my bum’s so sweaty that was fun very good so before we go to Smoky Mountain 
we’re going to go and visit some   of the residents that used to live there up 
until the 1990s when the area was privatised before that 100 trucks were bought in every day 
full of garbage but now the area is privatised   so some of the residents have had to move 
out because there was a lot of complaints obviously with a lot of trash it’s all 
being burnt and a lot of the residents   of the area were getting extremely 
sick breathing in all the fumes they were getting really ill and so 
the government did privatise it but   now the area does still exist but a lot 
of the residents had to move out to under   this bridge here so we’re going to go and 
visit them first to see how they live here sorry? they also sleep here they sleep here? Oh my god okay it’s their house they sleep there what the kids we just met? yeah also their parents this is so heartbreaking to see you know this is really heartbreaking hello hello hi your children? yes very beautiful this lovely lady is going to show us her house she said she doesn’t mind us seeing inside even   though it’s quite small but it’ll 
be nice to see how they live here my eyes are so bad in the dark where’s she going? which one is it? this is their stairs and they also go up thank you wow thank you thank you sorry I’m not very good at climbing oh very unbalanced oh my goodness wow this is your house? yes very small yeah it’s very small but it’s nice it’s nice how many people live in here? six six? oh my goodness are you coming? oh you’re there six people live here? where do you sleep? here six people? oh my goodness working somewhere else? oh okay wow six people but I think like if I lay 
like this… only one person and where do you cook? in here? wow but you have a good radio for karaoke? oh yeah karaoke i like singing singing oh so sweet! she has a nice thing to play 
karaoke and sing and a fan this is good this is good it’s small but it’s nice you make it nice you make it very nice thank you for showing us thank you she’s doing her laundry bless her so you can see the absolutely 
terrible conditions here this place is actually worse 
than the previous place that we   went to because they don’t have any 
access to electricity or water here so when they do take water 
they have to bring it from   quite far away and carry it all the way down here and I did ask if the government support 
these kind of people and she told me that   they do but they relocate them 
to quite far away from the city so they give them a place outside 
that’s so far away that there’s   no work so they eventually end up coming back so it’s almost like they’re trapped here right? for some food for you thank you you’re welcome thank you for showing us your house thank you you know what’s really frustrating 
is that well we’re not rich at all   so we can give as much as we can 
give but it’s frustrating because   you just want to give so much 
more but then where does it end where does it end? there’s so many people you help one family and then 
there’s still thousands of   other families that are still 
affected and you can’t help i just can’t get my head around the fact that 
there’s people in this world that are so rich   and they’re living in these mansions with 
unlimited everything and they can get whatever   they want… and then there’s people literally 
living next to a river in a tiny room and going   to the toilet in the same river that they use 
the water from and it’s just actually so sad this is honestly one of the hardest 
things I’ve ever had to see in my life we both just broke down when you think it can’t get any worse 
it gets worse and yeah we might be a   little bit low energy for the next part 
of this video because this is just a lot I can’t believe after years of travel I’ve never   ever seen conditions like this 
for humans it’s really really sad so anyway we will put all the details at the   end of this video on how you 
can help, how you can donate we’re going to find out from Jocelyn how we can 
help the charities that help around this area it’s really really important 
because this is just nuts honestly the people that have escaped Smoky 
Mountain have built houses around   the edge here so you can see 
a lot of really small houses   made from kind of old scraps and eight 
or nine people are living here as well are you okay? just going through like a a roller 
coaster of emotions right now honestly I feel completely lost for words right   now which is so unlike me 
but this is just so awful I feel like the vibes change from 
happy land because before in there   there’s like a huge community 
feeling and they all work together they also have basic supplies like electric 
and water but here they don’t have anything if they take water they have to go really 
far and carry it back to those little houses and when it rains Jocelyn was explaining that the 
children are really happy because outside they can   shower in the rain but then the parents are really 
sad because inside their house will be soaking wet it’s just unbelievable that people 
live like this honestly I just can’t I need to stop crying i’m walking along but I just can’t 
help it because it’s just so unfair so now Jocelyn is leading us up 
the entrance towards Smoky Mountain i don’t know how I’m going to 
prepare myself for this if I’m honest we’re hiking most of the people that lived here before were   fishermen but now that the seas 
are so polluted there’s no fish so they’ve become scavengers   and that’s just the first issue of the 
amount of garbage that’s in this area secondly is that there was so much garbage that 
it started to affect all the health of the kids   and the nearby locals because they were burning 
it so government had a solution which was put   loads of soil on top of the garbage so 
that’s what we’re walking on right now literally look and still the garbage is seeping through absolutely crazy absolutely crazy so the locals that still live on this mountain   are trying to regenerate a little 
bit and make money in other ways all behind me are sweet potato plants so they grow   it here and then they’ll sell it in 
the market to make some extra cash so instead of just scavenging they are looking 
for new ways to make money which is really nice and there are around 500 residents here 
and they’re all waiting to be relocated they don’t want any money from the government they   just want to be relocated 
and I completely understand for me this is just a reminder that the 
world needs to ban single-use plastic don’t know why it’s even a thing 
anymore we should go back to glass i know glass has its own problems but nowhere   near the amount of environmental 
impact that single use plastic has so behind me you can see the whole of Manila… the super rich area of Manila and 
from this slum this is what people   are looking at so it’s almost like 
a constant reminder that this is   where they are and this is how other 
people live which is even more sad i like your hair oh that is so cute We got a Filipino Donald Trump here you a good man? good man oh that was too cute adorable where you from? England Welcome to the Philippines! thank you so they even have little shops on the top 
of the mountain where they’re selling beer,   some snacks, some homemade stuff 
like pancake I think it was looks like they’ve got like a 
little business set up up here yeah making some more money which is nice their gates are made out of bed 
mattresses, really clever idea they use it for their houses as well so they take all of the material that 
they possibly can and make stuff from it and actually up here it is a lot nicer 
up here than down like because you have   the view and a lot more space I think 
and they’ve seem to have done really   well at kind of making their houses out of old 
material and it’s got quite a nice vibe to it it’s really quiet and it feels quite happy 
so yeah much better than down by the river hello how are you? i’m fine! everyone’s so beautiful hello how are you? good shy cute as hell every single person I’ve met has smiled 
and said hello and waved and initiated it sometimes I initiate but they do once again it’s just a testament to their 
character it’s just absolutely inspiring you know you can you can be 
living through such hardship   but yet still manage to be positive and smile yeah and then there’s people in England 
with everything and they’re always moaning depressed always moaning it makes you realise that you should 
really count your blessings you know yeah i feel like everyone should come and see this sort   of stuff because it really 
puts life into perspective 100% makes you appreciate every little thing like now when I have a shower in 
the morning, even if it’s cold,   I used to moan but now I’m just going to 
think no I’m just lucky that I’ve actually   got some water to wash myself and that it’s 
not a river full of trash and human faeces he’s doing it one hand guys he’s been hanging for about 10 minutes this is like an Olympic world record look at him one hand wow he’s so strong look he’s being a monkey he’s doing this how is he so strong? i can’t do this the kids here do actually go to school this is their school this is their little uniform so cute and it’s free it’s brilliant but the one in the pink she missed school today   because she overslept and I said 
I was 30 she said “Bye Grandpa” cheeky okay so this is the last part of our tour 
i hope that I give you a better insight   what life here in slum area in Tondo and 
thank you very much for doing this tour   because it’s a big help to our foundation and 
also to the residents live here in slum area and I hope that if you’re going 
back in your country please tell   your friends also if they came here in 
Manila visit our Smoky Tours because   it’s a big help in our foundation 
and also to the residents live here thank you oh thank you you’re the best and I hope that in your life   you can leave happyland get more 
money and yeah get a bigger house oh I hope so my children finish study 
and also for the help of our foundation yeah I really hope so so guys like I said earlier it is so 
important for the locals here to receive   donations so please please please even 
if it’s just $2 it will really help them

In this video, we visit Tondo in Manila, one of the most underserved communities in the Philippines — to understand what life is really like for the people living there.

We walk through the narrow streets of “Happyland” and visit Smokey Mountain — a former dumpsite where families still live among the remnants of a massive trash heap. Along the way, we meet locals who share their stories, their challenges, and their incredible resilience. This experience was deeply emotional and eye-opening — and it’s one we’ll never forget.

If you’d like to help, you can donate directly through the Super Thanks feature below. Every contribution will be sent to Bless The Children – the local charity supporting this community.
_____________________________________________________________
Thank you for watching and helping us make a difference! 😊

#Tondo #Manila #Philippines #SlumLife #RealPhilippines #Charity

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