Demolition crews tear into a shantytown in the Philippines, ignoring the desperate pleas of residents for them to stop.<br/> <br />Around 100 families were living here, squatting on a disused private lot in the east of the capital Manila.<br/> <br />But now residents have been forcibly evicted in order to make way for commercial development.<br/> <br />Authorities said they offered an eviction order last week and advised the families to relocate to an area outside of the city where housing was being offered.<br/> <br />Slum residents though say they declined to relocate as the new area was prone to landslides, and they were given no formal notice before the demolition.<br/> <br />(SOUNDBITE) (Filipino) COMMUNITY LEADER ROMEO HUGADO:<br/> <br />"We trusted our city hall officials to help us, but we were abandoned. What happened to us was very unfortunate, we can't do anything."<br/> <br />Manila has the largest number of informal setters in the Philippines, with more than one-and-a-half million people living on empty lots owned by private companies or the government.<br/> <br />Several slum communities in the capital have been destroyed in the past year to make way for infrastructure and property projects.
