Meet the last pirates of Tondo, on 'Front Row'

It used to be called Engineer’s Island (Pulo ng Inhinyero), until it was renamed Baseco or Bataan Shipping and Engineering Company by relatives of the former First Lady Imelda Marcos when they purchased the land. Before that, it was used primarily as a shipping port. In 2001, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared that the 56-hectare pier should be for the home of Manila’s poor. This is the playground of Tondo’s last pirates.



JR started earning his own keep when he was nine. He begs the docked cargo ships for spare or used oil or bunker fuel. And sometimes when the crew is not looking, he and his friends would help themselves to whatever the ship has as cargo, usually industrial steel or other construction materials. Getting caught usually means being berated by the cew or dodging flying broken bottles thrown at them on a regular basis. JR is the 11th child in a brood of 16  barely surviving on the meager earnings of their impoverished family.



The crew of cargo ships that regularly dock in Baseco call them pirates because of their illicit activities, brazen tactics, and their impressive speed when they swim the murky waters of Manila Bay. But not all of them are fast enough to evade the wrath of their targets. After they were caught trying to get wires from a docked cargo ship a few days ago, a beer bottle thrown at them shattered and hit John Mark’s head. He is also 13 years old and a member of JR’s group. His skull split open in three places. Yet even as he writhes in pain and his face is swollen, he says once he heals, he will gladly join his pirate friends again.