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‘I Didn’t Promise Heaven,’ Arroyo Tells Urban Poor Leaders

"Where have your promises gone?" urban poor leaders asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during a dialog last week. Expecting concrete answers to their problems, they instead received a long sermon from the President who last July said, "Nalulungkot ako pag may nakikita akong iskwater sa sariling bayan (I feel sad whenever I see squatters in our own country)."

BY ANANEZA ABAN
Bulatlat.com

Some 50,000 families will be displaced if the planned construction of a mega dike in the Napindan area pushes through. The project will affect residents of Taguig and Taytay, neighboring municipalities of Rizal.

This warning was aired by the April 30 Working Group, a coalition of urban poor organizations, to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during a dialogue in Malacañang last October 17.

The president admitted having scant information on the Napindan project and refused to order a moratorium on its construction. And the mega dike moratorium was not the only appeal that the president rejected.

The urban poor leaders who attended the dialogue were extremely disappointed with the President who belted out a long speech that was almost a sermon.

Arroyo complained that the group raised the same things raised in an earlier meeting last June. “Noong nakaraang apat na buwan iyan din ang sinabi nyo sa akin (These are the same things you told me four months ago),” she said.

The April 30 Working Group talked to Arroyo about conditions in Erap City and other government relocation sites in Bulacan and Cavite. They reminded the president of her various promises: security of land tenure to 150,000 families very year; 1,000 rolling stores selling cheap rice for the poor; and health insurance to 500,000 indigents.

According to urban poor leaders, the rolling stores have yet to materialize; their names are yet to be included in the list of insurance beneficiaries and their lands are yet to be proclaimed for socialized housing.

Of the P100 million budget they requested during the meeting for rehabilitation of the resettlement areas, only P40 million was committed by Arroyo.

“Hindi ako nangako ng langit, (I did not promise heaven),” responded Arroyo to the urban poor leaders’ questions on her promises.

“While Malacañang is engrossed over foreign policy by supporting the US-led war… poor Filipinos would like to remind her of her domestic duties specially to the poor,” an urban poor leader said. Bulatlat.com

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