In her wildest dreams, Rosemarie Gaerlan never dreamed she would own a home, and a modern one at that, after her life as a squatter.
'It feels great,' the 42-year-old housewife beamed as she proudly showed off her neat, 20-square metre one-bedroom unit with running water, a toilet and a bath.
She and husband Mario, 47, had built an illegal shack on the government-owned Baseco compound, a former shipyard near the Smokey Mountain rubbish tip.
The family lived there for 14 years, raising seven children by selling clean water from a well to fellow squatters and tending pigs.
But last January, the family and thousands of others lost their shacks in a blaze. They were given makeshift shelter in an abandoned government building.
The tragedy gave a Catholic charity called Gawad Kalinga - which in Filipino means 'to give care' - the chance to showcase an alternative model for development that bypasses government red tape to provide new homes.
To date, the group has managed to build 6,321 houses across the country.