Manila's slums

Free housing, free electricity and no taxes -- That's how migrants living in Manila's slums live.

No plumbing, little policing and very few jobs also make up the life of squatters living in Manila.

Walking through the streets, I could not help but be drawn to the slum areas. People slept on the streets.

A monument commemorating the colonial tie between Spanish Mexico and the Philippines was obscured by hanging laundry.

Later that day, I was walking along the streets with a Filipino named Michelle who I had met a few hours earlier.

Michelle had graduated from college a year ago with a degree in physics, and was working on passing her exit exams before getting a job.

Unlike many Filipinos, Michelle explained that she wanted to stay in her country rather than work abroad.

In the United States, many Filipino women work as nurses, housekeepers and an assortment of other jobs.

Michelle had dedicated her life to making the Philippines better by becoming a teacher.

As we were walking I noticed a few children sitting on the street. I told her it broke my heart to see the children in the street.

"That is how desperate our situation is here," Michelle told me. She began to tell me of her experience in the slums.

Michelle had been out walking when she saw a little boy who covered in fifth and looked very hungry.

He had asked her for money. She decided to buy him lunch instead.

She explained that buying the lunch was in vain as a group of big boys came and stole the little boy's lunch.

"They beat him," she said. Her eyes were a little glassy.

I asked her what she said.

"Nothing. They were very big," she said.

I could hear the pain in her voice and understood why she could not leave. She cared too much.