The STREET PEOPLE / (Homeless in Cebu City, Philippines)

Pea uses her advantage as a Tagalog-speaking local to interview a homeless family living on the streets of Cebu City, getting candid answers that most foreign vloggers could never access. She emphasizes that unlike homelessness in the West, which is often tied to mental health or addiction, the street people in the Philippines are homeless for purely economic reasons — no opportunities, no safety net, just survival. After the interviews, Pea buys groceries and supplies for the family, but closes the video with a raw, frustrated reflection on the hopelessness of the situation.

What's Covered ​

• Pea frames the episode differently from typical homelessness content

  • She stresses that in Western countries, homelessness is often attributed to mental health and drug addiction, but in the Philippines, the causes are purely economic — people with no opportunities and no past or future
  • As a local who speaks the language, she can approach people and get interviews that foreign YouTubers simply cannot — the street people wouldn't normally talk to outsiders
  • She goes to areas of Cebu City that other content creators avoid

• Interview with Merlin (Nanai) and her daughter Merlinda (age 24)

  • They have lived on the streets their entire lives — Merlin grew up on the streets of Cebu City as a child and has been there ever since
  • Merlin's family originally had ten siblings
  • Merlin's husband left because he was a womanizer — Pea notes he couldn't even afford to feed the family but was still chasing other women
  • They survive by begging for food
  • They get drinking water from a private household, paying five pesos (about ten cents) for water
  • They bathe at night between parked cars to hide themselves, using the space in front of an abandoned building where they camp
  • Merlinda has a six-month-old baby boy whose father disappeared — the father turned out to already have his own family, and Merlinda didn't know until after she got pregnant; the man has four other children by different women, making her baby his fifth
  • The father has never provided any support for the child

• How they earn money: informal parking attendants

  • The family helps drivers find parking spots near the abandoned building and guards their cars in exchange for tips
  • On a normal day they earn 100–300 pesos ($2–$6 USD)
  • Since the pandemic, earnings dropped to 80–150 pesos ($1.60–$3 USD per day) — barely enough for food for the whole group
  • They are not employed by the government; this is entirely informal hustle

• Government "rescues" and why they resist shelters

  • A government truck roams the area trying to capture homeless people (that's the actual term used) to put them in shelters
  • The family actively hides from these trucks
  • Merlinda says they were captured once and put in a shelter for three days before they escaped
  • The reason they escaped: there was not enough food in the shelter — they have more freedom and better access to food on the streets
  • Their one hope for the future is simply a better living situation

• Mary — a 17-year-old orphan living with the family

  • Mary is the girlfriend of Merlinda's brother
  • She has a baby less than one month old
  • Mary never met her mother and has no father — she is a complete orphan who has spent her entire life on the streets
  • She met Merlinda's family on the streets and became part of their group
  • She has no knowledge of contraception

• Contraception and the cycle of poverty

  • Pea asks both Merlinda and Mary about contraception
  • Merlinda says she is now considering it because she knows how hard street life is and doesn't want more children
  • Mary doesn't seem to have any concept of it
  • When asked about COVID fears, the family says they're not afraid because they have faith in God

• Pea buys supplies for the family

  • She spends her spare trip money on baby milk, diapers, and enough food to hopefully last about a week for the roughly 10 people in the family
  • She visits where they cook (on the street) and sees their drinking water and bathing area firsthand
  • They don't own a can opener — they use a knife to open canned goods
  • Pea describes Merlin's love and warmth as "contagious" despite the desperate circumstances

• Pea's closing reflection — raw and frustrated

  • She says the interview left her frustrated and deeply sad
  • She describes people living on cardboard strips, showering behind parked cars, owning almost nothing
  • Her sharpest pain is for Mary: "that's what she is, just a girl, cradling a newborn in her arms with no conception of contraception — she has no future, her child has no future, and there will certainly be more mouths to feed before all is said and done"
  • She admits she has no answer and no plan: "I stand here before you just as clueless and helpless as the rest of us — I'm just a messenger exposing a tragic truth to the public eye"
  • She frames the episode as food for thought and a reminder of how lucky viewers are not to have been born on the streets

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