There are 12-million people living within Manila's city limits. Some say that makes it the most densely populated metropolis in the world.

Manila is also a city of the privileged and the poor. Tens of thousands live in sidewalk shanties or on the street. For them, money is hard to come by, especially for the vulnerable masses of street children.

"The poverty of being hopeless is the worst kind of poverty we can deal with," said Andy Moll, director of the Consuelo Foundation.

The trust provides financial aid to Philippine relief organizations.

Street children are runaways or abandoned. The plight is no respector of persons. Street children sleep on cardboard boxes. They beg for money and food.

"I'm afraid of being abused," said 13-year-old Gian Lebasbas.

She lives under an overpass. She's never lived in a home.

Abuses of street children are rampant. Many are attacked, raped, jailed with pedophiles. Some become prostitutes. Many get pregnant long before they're ready to become parents.

"We have seven pregnant teenage patients," Dr. Harvey Carpio said.

Carpio works with an outreach organization called ChildHope Asia-Philippines. It helps street kids. Carpio treats sicknesses and sores while counselors try to teach the basics of hygiene even though the elements of life in the street constantly work against them.

"There is big hope for these children," said street educator Jessie Jerusalem. "They still have lots of plans for themselves."

On a typical visit, street educators play a video from the back of a van. Kids who have never had a home watch a program that depicts living a normal life. They are outsiders looking in.

"If you change one life of child then you're almost perfect in the eyes of the children and in the eyes of God," said Camia Ferrer of ChildHope.

Starvation is the main foe. Even with funding help, ChildHope can't afford to feed all 1,500 street kids it counsels every year. With food scarce many street children turn to sniffing glue. The cheap high hides their hunger.

"My glue sniffing patient was a six-year-old boy," Carpio said.

UNICEF estimates 70,000 filipino children live on the streets of metro Manila. There are one-point-two million of them throughout the Philippines. Every day is a study in survival.

Organizations like ChildHope and the Consuelo Foundation do what they can. But even they say it's not enough.

A country that's staunchly catholic hasn't turned a blind eye to the plight of street children. The problem has been in its cross hairs for years. And it's not going anywhere.

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