Did the Philippine government purposely remove homeless people living in areas where Pope Francis would be passing by during his visit?
This question is a compelling one as the Pope is a staunch advocate and supporter of the causes of the poor.
'The Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has confirmed that 340 members of 100 homeless families were removed from Roxas Boulevard, a major Manila thoroughfare, and temporarily relocated to a beach resort about 90 kilometers (55 miles) away for the duration of the Papal visit," CNN reported. "The families returned after the Pope's departure."
It was also reported that the DSWD spent P4.7 million ($97,600) for the entire effort, which has since received much backlash from the public and earned an inquiry from lawmakers on whether the said "six-day training course" at a Nasugbu, Batangas resort was tantamount to a "misuse of public funds."
DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman has since admitted of the roundup and explained the reasons behind it. According to ABS-CBN News, she said that "the family camp is a regular activity conducted by the DSWD to allow street dwellers to see life away from streets surrounded by a roof and four walls."
"After the family camp, participants are given options to either send the children to school or give them job opportunities or find them low-cost housing projects which they can rent for a minimal fee," the news source said.
Philippine senator Nancy Binay, who initiated the investigation, said that while she appreciated the idea of the whole activity, "she questioned the budget spent on the activity and the need to send the families to as far away as Batangas to achieve that objective."
CNN also reported that Soliman had explained that her department "had already intended to enroll the families in the training program, and had considered the period of the Pope's visit would be the ideal time to do so."
"To prepare for Pope Francis' arrival... local governments wanted to make sure that Roxas Boulevard was in a secure and safe state, and so were the (homeless) people... with the influx of people in the area," she was quoted by the news outlet as saying.
"So when we reached out to the families on Roxas Boulevard, since we were already planning to register them to the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer Program, we thought it could be the right time to hold the orientation from January 15 to 19," she added.
Meanwhile, Representative Terry Ridon, one of the lawmakers calling for the probel, remarked that this was not the first time that the said department had "made an attempt to cover up the massive inequality in the country."
It was alleged that the same thing was done during the 2014 World Economic Forum on East Asia, where families were relocated to a resort for a similar activity as the one done during the Pope's visit.
Currently, the relocated families are temporarily housed at government facilities in the country's capital, the BBC said.
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