MANILA, Philippines — ACT Teachers party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio on Monday accused the Marcos administration of reviving the former first lady Imelda Marcos’ practice of concealing urban poverty from foreign visitors, citing the clearing of vendors, street dwellers and small businesses along routes for the ASEAN Summit.
Tinio, also a deputy minority leader, said the displacement of urban poor communities in Pasay and Parañaque to present a “sanitized” Metro Manila to more than 10,000 foreign delegates echoed beautification campaigns during the Marcos dictatorship.
“Five decades after Imelda Marcos whitewashed Manila’s slums for the Miss Universe pageant, the IMF-World Bank meeting, and the papal visit, her son is staging the exact same production,” Tinio said.
“From the ‘City of Man’ to today’s art-wrapped barriers along J.W. Diokno Boulevard, the script has not changed: hide the poor, polish the pavement, and deceive the world,” he added.
Among those affected were vendors near Baclaran Church and beneath LRT Line 1 in Pasay, as well as workers at small businesses such as Diwata Pares, whose employees reportedly earn P500 a day.
Tinio also cited reports that street dwellers near the Manila Film Center had been driven away ahead of the summit.
He criticized the use of artworks, including those by National Artists, on barriers along summit routes, saying art was being used to conceal hunger and homelessness rather than expose social realities.
“It is the height of irony that the works of Filipino artists — including our National Artists — are being weaponized to hide hunger and homelessness from visiting dignitaries,” he said.
Tinio said affected workers had received no financial assistance and had not been given a timeline for returning to their livelihoods.
He also recalled that the same road stretch was littered with garbage when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. personally inspected it in August, arguing that the problem stemmed from government neglect rather than aesthetics.
“Poverty is not an eyesore to be fenced off from view. It is the direct result of decades of anti-people policies,” Tinio said.
He urged the administration to prioritize in-city housing, livelihood security and basic services over beautification projects, and called on the ASEAN National Organizing Council and the local governments of Pasay and Parañaque to compensate affected vendors and workers and guarantee their return to their livelihoods after the summit.
“If the Marcoses truly want to impress the world, they should not hide the poor — they should lift them up,” Tinio said. “But after five decades, from Imelda to Bongbong, wala pa ring nagbago: the poor remain hidden, and the powerful remain committed only to appearances.”