gabriela solon warns against rights violations in plans to clear informal settlers

Gabriela Women's Party Representative Luz Ilagan today cautioned President Aquino, the DILG and Metro Manila mayors following a directive to implement the clearing of 125,000 families residing beside Metro Manila waterways and some 62,000 more families alongside Laguna Lake.

The Gabriela solon said recent statements from Malacanang to "clear" and "blast" informal settlers in the guise of flood-control operations forebode violence and massive human rights violations.

“These statements are in fact, shrouded threats of violence against urban poor families especially since many urban poor communities have witnessed bloody and violent demolition episodes like those in Corazon de Jesus in San Juan, Silverio Compound in Paranaque and North Triangle in Quezon City.”

The Gabriela solon further said that clearing efforts must be accompanied with carefully planned relocations. “These efforts must be carefully planned. You cannot relocate informal settlers from danger zones to equally hazardous and deadly locations like Kasiglahan Village in Rodriguez, Northville in Bulacan and Southville in Laguna."

"All efforts to clear and relocate informal settlers must be done with utmost respect for basic human rights with the recognition of existing social realities, of poverty, landlessness and unemployment that led these families to live in these danger zones,” concluded Ilagan.#