In Manila, the Philippines, thousands of residents share homes with the dead. They mostly live in Cementerio del Norte, a 54-hectare public cemetery in the northern part of the city. Some also reside in other cemeteries. Most of the people there are rather poor; they are vendors or taxi drivers and can't afford housing in the city, so they've found a rent-free place.

A resident at Cementerio del Norte told the Global Times that she lives in the mausoleum with her entire family, her parents, grandparents, and two children. She knows the family that own the mausoleum, and they let her stay there, knowing her situation.

The small space is crowded with a TV, blankets, a sofa, electric fans, and other living necessities. Two stone tombs lie in one corner of the mausoleum, while kids sleep on a bamboo mattress in the other corner.

Walking around the community, it's easy to see children playing basketball in the graveyard, doing homework over tombs, or taking showers in buckets on the streets. Some mausoleums have been turned into arcade game rooms or storage rooms. The Filipino government has not acted to evict the cemetery residents. 

Young people relax and hang out next among the Cementerio del Norte's tombs. Photos: Li Hao/GT

People watch a speech before the Philippine national elections by now presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte on TV, as they rest casually among the tombs.

A family relaxes in deck chairs as they watch TV next to two tombs in one of the cemetery's mausoleums.

A woman sleeps in a hammock strung between two trees in front of a mausoleum in Cementerio del Norte, Manila.

Residents of the cemetery play a makeshift version of pool using disks instead of balls.