Estrada orders repair of Lacson statues

Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada on Monday ordered the city engineer’s office to start restoring the two bronze statues of former Mayor Arsenio Lacson.

At the same time, Estrada said he had commissioned another statue of the man considered by many as Manila’s best mayor to be installed in front of city hall. One of the statues to be repaired shows the former mayor reading a newspaper while seated on a bench. Installed on Roxas Boulevard beside the seawall, it is now missing both arms.

Lacson’s daughter Millie Lacson-Lapira earlier appealed to the previous city administration to repair the sculpture but nothing was done.

The second statue is located at Plaza Lacson, formerly Plaza Goiti, in Sta. Cruz. “This is not the way to treat a hero. Manila is not Manila without any mention of Mayor Lacson. He built and transformed Manila into a roadmap city that became the show window of the country to the world,” Estrada said in a statement.—Erika Sauler