IN THE shabby streets of Manila, wiry children dodge through the exhaust fumes of jeepneys and rusty taxis. Horns blare and their bare feet skip across dust and pebbles where the thin bitumen strip of road deteriorates into rocky potholes.
On one side, wooden huts lean precariously against one another with tired signboards declaring 'Mariela's Bar' and 'Shakey's Delivers'.
On the opposite side, a thick, white-washed cement wall defends the square block of land within.
A guard peers from a sentry hole and allows visitors to enter through a doorway cut into imposing steel double-gates.
Those permitted to duck their heads and step across the threshold have escaped the squalor and entered another world: the garden sanctuary of one of the world's most outspoken and influential Catholic leaders.
The tarred driveway is smooth and dark, all the way to neat kerbs.
A good-sized chapel sits amid well-tended lawns overflowing with frangipani, palms, orchids grafted to the trunks of large trees and tropical blooms.
