Popular Ambition
TMCnet, June 21, 2006
Federico Castor is hardly the sort of consumer who makes marketers rub their hands with glee. The 55-year-old lives in a precarious-looking concrete shack in the community of San Andres Bukid in Manila. He's lived there since 1968, selling cigarettes -- one stick at a time -- and candy from a makeshift wooden stall.
Castor's community is lively but poor. His street is narrow and lined with shabby huts and tiny businesses. Cockerels scour the gutters pecking at fruit husks and bottle caps. Young men play basketball in the alleyways while their mothers and aunties smoke cheroots and play cards on upturned crates. The air is thick with gossip and the pungent smell of simmering sardines.
>> View Article | created on: 07/06/2006
