MANILA - Teenager Piolo Perez swings his bat on a baseball field built atop the Philippines' most notorious trash heap, sending home run balls crashing through the shanties mushrooming on the outfield. Poverty is widespread in the Philippines, with one in four Filipinos earning a mere $1.30 a day, but the conditions at the Smokey Mountain squatter colony are especially dire. Despite the odds, Smokey Mountain teams compete in the country's little league tournaments, and many of them have excelled, Riparip, 48, said. - Scholarship hope -Perez, the son of a tricycle driver, learned to play baseball at the lot when he was eight. New shanties sprouted and the whole area came to be known as Smokey Mountain.

Source: Bangkok Post July 19, 2016 04:41 UTC