The train starts to move. Ondo jumps onto the step. One short surf to the end of the platform and then he jumps off again. That’s where he gets his kick from. This is the station of the street children. This is where Rian (12 years), Ondo (10) and Mark (9) live: on the platform. Here they sleep, eat, play and beg travelers for a few Pesos. Ondo is continuously sniffing Rugby, a widespread drug in Manila made from solvents. His parents disappeared. He doesn’t know them anymore.

Fourteen times a day the old local train of the Philippine National Railways travels the 28 kilometers from Tayumen in the center of the 16 million megalopolis to Alabang in the outskirts of Manila. Since 80,000 families have settled along the route, every single one of these 28 kilometers is nerve-wracking for the drivers. It is mostly poor migrants from the provinces searching for a better life in the city who have built their houses, which are mostly slum shacks made from wood, steel plates and cardboard, only inches away from the railroad track, which is of course illegal. There are fatal accidents every week, but there are no statistics or funds for the bereaved.

The railroad track is also the children’s playground. Miraculously only a few children are injured or killed every time the heavy cars pass by merely inches away. In many cases, the children are pulled off the track by their mothers at the very last moment.