We’re not hiding the poor, says palace spokesperson

The Aquino administration’s decision to erect billboards to hide a slum area in Pasay City from the eyes of foreign visitors attending the Asian Development Bank (ADB) meeting was met with opposition from human rights groups.

Jessica Evans, senior international financial institution advocate of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the Philippine government “is sending the message that dire poverty can just be ignored.

Instead of concealing the poor, Evans said the Philippine government “should be pressing the bank to tackle poverty head on.”

Evans added that hiding the urban poor goes against the ADB theme of inclusive growth. “But the very poor, as this incident shows, have been shunted out of sight. Let’s hope that they are not shunted out of mind.”

Renato M. Reyes Jr., secretary-general of the progressive group Bayan, also blasted the cosmetic uplift made by the Philippine government, saying “no amount of high walls from the Philippine government can conceal poverty.”

The group cited a most recent Social Weather Stations survey on self-rated poverty, which indicated that an estimated 11.1 million families considered themselves poor in March this year, an increase of two million families from just 9.1 million in December last year.

But Malacañang denied it was trying to hide the signs of abject poverty in the city from the foreign guests, saying the government acknowledges that it remains a problem in the country and that its flagship programs are geared towards alleviating the issue.

“We are not trying to whitewash poverty. It is very real. It is why we are taking steps to address that particular problem,” Undersecretary Abigail Valte told reporters in a news briefing in Malacañang on Friday.