Impoverished Filipinos forge a life among tombstones and the dead

In teeming Manila, where poverty runs deep and millions lack adequate shelter, some of the living have found refuge among the dead.

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Ms Laileah Cuetara’s shanty sits atop a pair of raised tombs inside the Philippine capital’s Manila North Cemetery, a 54ha public graveyard that is home to about 6,000 informal settlers and at least a million dead Filipinos.

The tiny wood structure where she lives with her partner and two children is filled from side to side with a foam mattress, shelves, a television and picture frames. In the doorway, a statue of an angel stands on an infant’s crypt that doubles as a table.

The 36-year-old makes around 3,000 pesos (S$67) a month selling sweets, drinks and biscuits to cemetery visitors.

Over All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, when millions of Filipinos visit graves, she and her partner receive up to 1,700 pesos for each of the 30 tombs they clean and tend to throughout the year.

But the money they earn is far too little for them to move, she said ahead of the Nov 1 and Nov 2 holidays.

“With the high prices of basic goods nowadays, it’s very difficult to improve our living conditions,” said Ms Cuetara, who moved into the cemetery in 2008 after a family conflict forced her from her home in the Manila suburbs.