Manila the capital of the Philippines
with a population of 10 million the city
is overflowing with people and the dead
Manila snorts cemetery is the city’s
largest with 70 to 80 funerals a day and
more than 1 million buried here it’s
filled beyond capacity spilling over
with corpses foremost this would be a
chilling place to visit but to some
Filipinos this sea of tombs and bones is
the place they call home an entire
community built on top of the Dead ramey
Landry toe has lived in the city of
death since 1988 they did they find it
on a lot of people think it’s scary to
live here inside the cemetery the
submissive interio he turned an
aboveground two min to a two-story house
few people would want to do their
laundry only feet away from a corpse and
a crib or brush their teeth on top of a
gravestone there’s even an empty tomb
inside Raimi’s living room this will be
the grave for my family me I won’t say
anymore whoever is first to go will be
buried here ramey lives here by choice
because this is where he works his job
is only a few tombstones away and it’s
not for the squeamish at least three
times a day Rainey must exhume the dead
with space and money scarce many poor
families must rent burial sites here in
what are called the apartments and like
any tenant the dead can be evicted if
the rent isn’t paid after five years the
apartment is opened then it’s Raimi’s
job to remove the body piece by piece
decomposed or not
it’s a task that took some getting used
to when I first started here at the
cemetery the first time I handled bones
I couldn’t eat for two weeks that only I
couldn’t sleep my stomach was upset I
felt like throwing up but three weeks
into the job I got used to it little by
little and I started eating again I know
here death is everywhere literally
staring residents in the face in this
neighborhood unclaimed bodies litter
front yards becoming children’s
playthings or ballast for tin roof tops
but Ramey a devout Catholic places the
unclaimed corpses in a mass grave so
that their souls may rest in peace boom
bah bah those who don’t have money to
Ribery the bones are stored here there
are more than 2,000 bodies here in the
Philippines caring for graves isn’t a
matter of placing flowers once a year
and that’s what makes it possible for
the cemeteries residents to live here
many people want to have someone to tend
their loved ones scripts on a full-time
basis Mario for malice an epitaph maker
has called the cemetery home for over 25
years Mario’s lease agreement is one few
Westerners would want to sign take care
of a crypt and its corpses and you can
move in with them for free and in turn
his family has a place to live
me hello people ask me why we live here
anything I tell them because rent is
free everything is free even water it
may be creepy but it’s also quiet and
safe particularly when compared to the
slums of Manila where squalor and drugs
are part of daily life brainy Landry doe
does hope that someday his son junior
will find a home far from the tombs and
coffins of the cemetery but until then
Raimi’s family and others like Mario for
malice will continue to live in a place
many would find taboo honey with me
money this really isn’t a place for the
living without but the latinum it’s a
place for the dead but in the end it’s
our home
with a population of 10 million the city
is overflowing with people and the dead
Manila snorts cemetery is the city’s
largest with 70 to 80 funerals a day and
more than 1 million buried here it’s
filled beyond capacity spilling over
with corpses foremost this would be a
chilling place to visit but to some
Filipinos this sea of tombs and bones is
the place they call home an entire
community built on top of the Dead ramey
Landry toe has lived in the city of
death since 1988 they did they find it
on a lot of people think it’s scary to
live here inside the cemetery the
submissive interio he turned an
aboveground two min to a two-story house
few people would want to do their
laundry only feet away from a corpse and
a crib or brush their teeth on top of a
gravestone there’s even an empty tomb
inside Raimi’s living room this will be
the grave for my family me I won’t say
anymore whoever is first to go will be
buried here ramey lives here by choice
because this is where he works his job
is only a few tombstones away and it’s
not for the squeamish at least three
times a day Rainey must exhume the dead
with space and money scarce many poor
families must rent burial sites here in
what are called the apartments and like
any tenant the dead can be evicted if
the rent isn’t paid after five years the
apartment is opened then it’s Raimi’s
job to remove the body piece by piece
decomposed or not
it’s a task that took some getting used
to when I first started here at the
cemetery the first time I handled bones
I couldn’t eat for two weeks that only I
couldn’t sleep my stomach was upset I
felt like throwing up but three weeks
into the job I got used to it little by
little and I started eating again I know
here death is everywhere literally
staring residents in the face in this
neighborhood unclaimed bodies litter
front yards becoming children’s
playthings or ballast for tin roof tops
but Ramey a devout Catholic places the
unclaimed corpses in a mass grave so
that their souls may rest in peace boom
bah bah those who don’t have money to
Ribery the bones are stored here there
are more than 2,000 bodies here in the
Philippines caring for graves isn’t a
matter of placing flowers once a year
and that’s what makes it possible for
the cemeteries residents to live here
many people want to have someone to tend
their loved ones scripts on a full-time
basis Mario for malice an epitaph maker
has called the cemetery home for over 25
years Mario’s lease agreement is one few
Westerners would want to sign take care
of a crypt and its corpses and you can
move in with them for free and in turn
his family has a place to live
me hello people ask me why we live here
anything I tell them because rent is
free everything is free even water it
may be creepy but it’s also quiet and
safe particularly when compared to the
slums of Manila where squalor and drugs
are part of daily life brainy Landry doe
does hope that someday his son junior
will find a home far from the tombs and
coffins of the cemetery but until then
Raimi’s family and others like Mario for
malice will continue to live in a place
many would find taboo honey with me
money this really isn’t a place for the
living without but the latinum it’s a
place for the dead but in the end it’s
our home
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