Tondo children collect election trash for money

“May pera sa basura.” This popular Filipino slogan is the inspiration of some children in Tondo, Manila to recycle garbage at a polling center for money.

Children grabbed the opportunity to earn a little cash by selling at a junk shop the plastic bottles and other trash they collected at Torres National High School in Tondo, one of the biggest polling centers in the country with 205 precincts.

According to Commission on Elections data, some 25,814 residents are expected to cast their votes at this school.

Voters usually leave behind heaps of trash as volunteers from different barangays provide them with light snacks and bottled water.

One of the children who pick up garbage told INQUIRER.net that they sold one sack of plastic bottles for P10.

They have already made P200 for selling 20 sacks of plastic bottles at a junk shop near the polling center.

Asked what they would do with the money, one of the kids said they would buy rice.

The 20 sacks of plastic bottles they collected translate to 20 fewer sacks of garbage that will be collected by the city government after the May 14 Synchronized Sangguniang Kabataan and Barangay Elections.

Thus, in their own little way, the children are contributing their part in the campaign for “cleaner and greener elections.” /vvp