Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada will lead thousands of people who will join Iglesia Ni Cristo’s “Worldwide Walk vs Poverty” on May 6, as part of the religious group’s fund-raising program to support its various feeding and medical mission programs in the country.
Mayor Estrada also expressed confidence that Manila’s poor communities would be among the beneficiaries of the event to be held in multiple venues around the globe.
The mayor said the event is expected to duplicate the INCs’ charity walk in 2014 where at least half a million people participated and placed it on the Guinness Book of Records as the largest group of marchers in a single day.
“The INC and the Manila city government are always cooperating with the aspirations of providing aid to the most Filipinos in the country,” Mayor Estrada said.
The Manila chief executive said the worldwide event will be simultaneously held at 358 sites in 44 different countries, 33 territories and across 18 time zones.
Estrada said the Worldwide Walk is a concrete manifestation of the caring, giving and sharing spirit of the Iglesia Ni Cristo.
Mayor Estrada has already directed the city’s Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau to coordinate with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Philippine National Police to enforce traffic rerouting to minimize traffic congestion in Manila.
He also ordered Manila Police District Director P/Supt. Joel Napoleon Coronel to cooperate with the INC and the FYM Foundation to ensure the orderliness of this activity and the safety of the participants.
He said the road closures in Manila will start midnight of May 5 until 10 p.m. of May 6, as thousands of participants along Roxas Boulevard will converge and walk from Manila to Pasay City.
The event will start from 6 a.m. onwards on May 6, along Roxas Boulevard in Manila.
In 2014, the Philippines broke two world records with the Iglesia ni Cristo’s Worldwide Walk for victims of typhoon Yolanda.
Guinness World Record adjudicator Kirsty Bennet told Filipinos that the “INC Worldwide Walk 2014” has beaten the record for largest charitable walk in 24 hours after drawing 519,221 participants.
The Manila mayor said that in 2014, the charity walk benefitted the victims of Super typhoon Yolanda that almost destroyed Central Visayas in 2013.
The proceeds helped finance the INC’s first-ever resettlement and eco-farming community in Leyte—the most devastated province by the strongest typhoon that ever happened in history.