MANILA, Philippines—There can’t be a better place to search for a diamond in the rough than Smokey Mountain in Tondo, Manila.

It is where 19-year-old softball belle Jenny Pangilinan grew up, and what she calls home. And on one of its lower plateaus lies a new landmark that Pangilinan hopes will change the face of the monument to poverty—a garbage mound that was leveled and cleared of broken bottles and plastic refuse to form the beginnings of a baseball/softball field.

The field is an ongoing project dreamed up mainly by two men: Manuel Marquez, a project director of Gawad Kalinga-Smokey Mountain, and Chito Gonzales, an official of Little League Philippines.

In the current hierarchy of sports personalities, Marquez and Gonzales are no-name guys. But they are a whiff of fresh air at this time when squabbles among the Philippine Olympic Committee, Philippine Sports Commission and national sports associations take up precious newspaper space.

“When Gawad Kalinga first came to Smokey Mountain in 2004, we wanted to help the youth here,” Marquez said. “We realized that by putting up baseball and softball squads, we would be able to help these children learn good values.”

The teams held their practices at Rizal Park. Soon they were showing up at tournaments in various places like Marikina City.

It was during these tournaments that Gonzales and other Little League officials noticed that the Smokey Mountain squad was doing pretty well.

“I saw Manny’s (Marquez) team and I wondered where his players picked up their skills. I asked him where they practiced,” recounted Gonzales.

“At that time,” Marquez said, “we played in a vacant lot. But then a church was built on it. Then we played in another open lot owned by (Smokey Mountain developer) Reghis Romero. But that lot was sold, so we lost another playground.”

Pangilinan and friends

Building a playing field for kids would have ranked low on the priority list of even a nonprofit organization like Gawad Kalinga despite the aim of its founder, Tony Meloto, to give Smokey Mountain residents decent housing, regular sources of livelihood and education.

Except that there was Jenny Pangilinan, who could pitch a softball well enough to earn a college scholarship from the University of the East (UE).

There were as well her schoolmates at the nearby Antonio Villegas Vocational High School, who also earned college scholarships because of the sport—Yrrla Jean Rojo at Adamson University and Rose Anne C. Llave at the University of Santo Tomas.

Neither Rojo nor Llave imagined that there’d be a field in Smokey Mountain.

“When I first learned of it, I couldn’t even visualize it. I kept wondering how they did it,” Llave said.

“I was surprised when I heard about it because all there is here is a dump,” Rojo said.

Trained mostly by Emmanuelito Llave, a physical education teacher at Antonio Villegas Vocational, the girls showed they had enough talent to play them through college.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence that in the recent season of the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines, Rojo’s Lady Falcons won the women’s softball crown, Llave’s Tigresses finished second and Pangilinan’s Lady Warriors placed third.

And it is certainly no mere stroke of luck that last year, Pangilinan played for a team in the Little League World Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the United States, and drew raves from scouts and observers for her pitching abilities.

She also led the team to a second-place finish.

Changing the image

“I never imagined I’d get that far,” Pangilinan told the Inquirer one rainy Thursday morning. “When I look at myself in the mirror, I wonder how someone so frail can excel in a sport.”

Marquez and Gonzales wanted to mine Smokey Mountain for more talents in the hope of giving its residents a shot at improving their lives and, at the same time, change the image of their home.

“Everywhere in the world, when you say Smokey Mountain, they [think of] kids living and playing in a garbage dump. In some countries they still show videos of children playing with cockroaches tied to strings,” Marquez said.

“We launched this slogan. We call it ‘From Shame to Fame,’” he said.

Thus did Marquez and Gonzales embark on the mission to build the softball/baseball field, which drew stiff resistance from anyone to whom they pitched the idea.

But they were relentless. When Manila won the right to host this year’s baseball and softball Philippine series, they proposed that a field be built on Smokey Mountain and that the games be played there.

Marquez went to the Manila Sports Council (Masco) to plead his case; Gonzales spoke with officials of the National Housing Authority (NHA).

In time officials of the Masco, NHA and even the Metro Manila Development Authority came to take a look at the site.

“But everyone was reluctant,” Marquez said. “All they saw was garbage. They were scared that children might hurt themselves stepping on broken bottles.”

Last card

Marquez and Gonzales drew their last card—the story of Jenny Pangilinan.

When the officials learned that a dusky, wispy teenager had struck out girls her age—and twice her size—here and overseas, they realized that putting up a diamond on a mountain of refuse might indeed make the difference for the residents.

Truckloads of a mix of garden soil, sand and gravel started arriving, and the dreamed-of field slowly began to emerge.

Not only that: Smokey Mountain became one of the venues of the recent Philippine Series.

“People came to watch the games,” said Gonzales. “There were incidents when teams from Alabang and Muntinlupa needed convincing. But eventually, they showed up and realized that games can be played here.”

Marinella Llave, 20, an international studies senior at De La Salle University who also plays softball, dropped by to check out the modest field.

Her verdict: “It doesn’t matter if there’s a mountain of garbage behind them. This field can be very important for the kids here.”

One such kid is Marinella’s sister, 14-year-old Agape. She plays for Antonio Villegas Vocational and hopes to play college ball someday.

The importance of the dream isn’t lost on Pangilinan, who has seen spanking new playing venues in various parts of the world but still smiles wistfully at the sight of the field that is a five-minute walk from the tenement building where she lives.

“When you say Smokey Mountain, all people think of are garbage and trouble-makers,” Pangilinan said, now on defensive mode. “We have people who will graduate with honors this year. We have students taking up nursing and engineering.”

Pangilinan said she once asked her UE teammates to play a game in Smokey Mountain. “They were all scared. They kept asking me if it is safe to play here. Someday, this field will change all that,” she said.

That day may be a little farther down the road. At this point, the field is devoid of grass normally carpeting softball or baseball diamonds. The spread of gravel easily turns to mud puddles after a steady rain.

The perimeter is ringed by bamboo poles surrounded by green fishnet—makeshift walls that determine which hits are home runs.

Because the field is so small—about half the size of a basketball court—even the weakest of hitters can send a ball past the fishnet perimeter. And once a ball flies out, it rolls down the field’s blackish slope and settles among the leftover litter at the dump of homers, which sits at the fringe of a grassy patch that separates the field and the murky Navotas river.

The bases are old, worn-out removable pads that Emmanuelito Llave has to pack up after each game lest garbage pickers mistake them for valuable recyclable material. And anyone plotting to steal third from second will have Smokey Mountain’s highest peak for a view.

Faith

But one thing is clear: The foundation for change has been laid.

“Like the movie (‘Field of Dreams’) says, ‘If you build it, they will come,’” Gonzales said. “As long as we keep improving the field, the kids will come to play, and who knows how many lives will be changed? For sure, there are a lot more Jenny Pangilinans out there.”

It’s going to take resources Marquez and Gonzales have yet to find to turn the field into one worthy of hosting major competitions. As it is, they, along with Pangilinan, have only faith to continue building their field of dreams on.

Then again, you know what they say about faith and mountains.