I was watching the news where they featured a story about Baseco compound, which is a squatters area along Manila Bay.  This is an area on the shores of Manila Bay, which is densely populated by illegal settlers.  The Bay has a natural harbour located around the Philippine capital city of Manila.   

The sad fact according to the news is that Baseco homes do not have functional toilets. When they interviewed the residents, they said they would just go and defecate outside their homes.  Actually, according to the Department of Health (DOH) about 7 million people still practice open defecation and the DOH hopes to achieve a zero open defecation status by the year 2022. 

What struck me in the feature was what the Secretary Francisco Duque III of the Department of Health had said a few months prior that "[w]e have more Filipinos with mobile phones than those with functional toilets." He said this during the celebration of World Toilet Day. According to the Secretary, the Philippine Statistics Authority said "70% of (Filipino) families have improved toilets that they do not share with other households", which is compared to "84% of Filipino households that claim to own cell phones".