THE country’s largest coalition of labor unions blasted the government Tuesday for trying to hide the homeless during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this month in Manila, prompting another denial from the Palace that the P4,000 given to each poor family was aimed at getting them out of the city during the event.
“The expanded or modified CCT [conditional cash trasfer] is part of a government program to promote poverty reduction and social development of the poorest of the poor in the country,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. The recent P4,000 dole, he added, was part of that program.
But Wilson Fortalza, spokesman for Partido Manggagawa, one of 49 labor organizations belonging to Nagkaisa, said the government had hidden away the homeless before, during the papal visit in January, when it took them off the streets and booked them in a resort for the duration of the pope’s stay.
On Saturday, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said the department’s project for the street families during Apec was a way of “reaching out” to the poor.
Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon, however, said Soliman was planning to hid them again in resorts.
Ridon had earlier asked the DSWD if it would repeat its “vanishing act” on the homeless.
In response to Ridon, DSWD budget sponsor Rep. Maria Carmen Zamora said that the department could not commit to stopping the outings, since the modified CCT was still ongoing.
She added that such activities had been going on, even after the pope’s visit.
“I take that to mean, then, that the DSWD will be repeating this deplorable vanishing act during the Apec summit?” Ridon retorted.
Zamora replied: “The DSWD will continue with the [program] even during the Apec summit, because it is the mandate of the DSWD.”
DSWD has asked Congress for a P62.6-billion budget for the conditional cash transfer program for 2016.
“Today, DSWD not only confirmed that the policy of hiding poor families has continued, but that they will repeat this act come November. This, ladies and gentlemen, is your shameless government that continues to resort to sweeping the escalating poverty… under the rug,” Ridon said.
Vice presidential candidate and Senator Francis Escudero hit the government for its double standard in dealing with the homeless.
He said there was something “severely wrong” when the government could move swiftly to give street dwellers in Manila financial assistance to relocate because they were “eyesores,” while leaving more than 200,000 families who survived Typhoon “Yolanda” two years ago languishing in temporary shelters.
Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo earlier blasted the government for its plan to conceal the homeless during the Apec summit by giving them money to be used for renting temporary homes from Nov. 15 to 20.
Deputy presidential spokeswoman Abigail Valte defended the DSWD, saying this was part of the government’s program to give homeless families “dignified living quarters,” and not because of Apec.
United Nationalist Alliance spokesman Mon Ilagan branded as “shameful” the government’s clearing of Metro Manila streets of homeless people.
He said “window dressing” poverty remains as the biggest moral scandal of the government.
“Why do you have to hide them? To cover up the inefficiencies of this government?” he also asked.
“The administration is ashamed of the poor but what’s more embarrassing is that after five years the numbers on poverty and hunger have worsened,” he added.
He said the “band-aid” solutions implemented by the administration have failed to address poverty. With Macon Ramos Araneta
