MANILA Mayor Joseph Estrada denied on Tuesday that the clearing of homeless people from city streets was meant to whitewash poverty and claimed that he only meant to “rescue” the homeless from the dangers of the streets.
Estrada made the remarks as he visited the Manila-owned Boys’ Town complex in Marikina City to check on the families who were picked up from Manila streets ahead of the arrival of foreign dignitaries for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit.
“What will [these foreigners] say to our country? That Filipinos are gravely hungry, sleeping on the street? Of course we won’t let that happen so we’ll clean up the streets,” Estrada said, stressing that it was part of a continuing city activity.
“It just happened that we rescue people all the time, not just during Apec,” Estrada said.
“What’s more important is that we protect the image of the country, there will be foreigners who will visit us here… This is our country. We need to protect the image of our country,” the mayor added.
“Even before the Apec, the city social welfare development department are already doing efforts to [keep streets scot-free from street dwellers],” said Boys’ Town administrator Jean Ramos.
She said the rescued street dwellers, counting 205 as of yesterday, “were all provided with education, livelihood trainings as such.”
The government drew flak for hiding street dwellers and holding them against their will after International watchdog Human Rights Watch slammed the government on Monday for detaining Manila’s homeless for the APEC.
Human Rights groups also called for the immediate release of mostly indigent and homeless street dwellers who were illegally detained just before the Apec.
