Saguisag: Gov’t should stop antipoor policy

The administration seems determined to carry out its policy that those who have less in life should have nothing in law.

Here in Palanan, Makati, the poor homeless sleep on sidewalks. Those in their tiny places in the sun make “tambay,” suffocated as they are in their shanties. Jobless for lack of employment opportunities. They make “tambay” to while their time away.

Congress has repealed the law against vagrancy. Having preempted the field nationally, no local ordinance can override national law and policy.

Given abject conditions in a country with 11 million unemployed, one has the human and constitutional right to be a bum. The administration should retreat from its antipoor programs.

R.A.V. SAGUISAG