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Sitio Kamandag, Brgy. Mayamot, Antipolo City

This area is intrinsically different to the areas of Bukang Liwayway.   Sitio Kamandag is in the City of Antipolo situated on the mountains just on the outskirts of Marikina, Metro Manila. It is adjacent to a huge deserted granite quarry and can be approached either by gravel road through the quarry or over a pedestrian bridge over the Antipolo River.

It is not so densely populated as Welfareville although there are more than 400 families living here. Most of the houses are very poorly constructed and made out of scraps of building materials bought bit-by-bit when some employment can be had, or which have been retrieved from a demolition site or a finder’s-keepers typhoon damage salvage. Although this is a city area, some dwellings are of the ‘bahay-Kubo’ provincial-type housing constructed out of bamboo and palm leaves.  

Employment is at a minimum, with a few traveling into Antipolo or Manila to work as vendors in the markets, as washerwomen in the richer subdivisions, or as laborers in the building sites. A few work in the local shoe factories in Cogeo. However the majority of the inhabitants are unemployed and spend much of the day idle, with no constructive occupation. Self - esteem is inevitably low and there is little or no sense of an ability to get out of this poverty trap.

 There are three main settlements in the area of Sitio Kamandag. The families of all these three areas are mostly Waray speakers from the Island of Samar or Tagalog speakers from the city of Antipolo or Manila. But they do not mix well with those of the other two areas, and there is an element of mistrust of one-another.