Philippines: Mass Arrests Before APEC Summit
‘Clearing Operations’ Target Homeless, Poor, and Street Children
These street dwellers in Dakota, a community in Manila not far from the Philippine International Convention Center where the APEC summit will be held, have been told by local authorities to “keep off the streets” for at least a week beginning November 16, 2015. November 12, 2015.
© 2015 Carlos Conde/Human Rights Watch
Since November 9, local authorities have rounded up several hundred adults and children from streets and informal settlements in Manila and surrounding municipalities of Metro Manila, and detained them without charge. Many of the adults operate food carts or sell scavenged items and were told by officials who detained them that they would be able to return to the streets and resume their work after the summit. On the orders of local mayors, including Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, police and social workers are detaining them under guard in government facilities for the homeless and orphans.
“Philippine authorities have violated the rights of hundreds of Manila residents to put a cynical veneer of ‘cleanliness’ on the city for APEC delegates,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The removal and detention of homeless and impoverished residents from where they live and work without due process is a violation of their basic human rights.”
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that police, neighborhood officials, and social workers appear on the streets where people are living and examine their tents and hovels. The people detained are then brought by truck to the Reception and Action Center (RAC), a social welfare facility run by the Manila city government. Adults and accompanied children from Manila are held at the RAC while children from Manila with no parents present are sent to Boys Town, a shelter for homeless children run by the Manila government in nearby Marikina. Many of those picked up, including people from outside Manila, are then sent to the Jose Fabella Center, a national government-run facility for the homeless in neighboring Mandaluyong City.
The national Department of Social Welfare and Development told Human Rights Watch that from November 9 to November 12 a total of 48 homeless or indigent individuals have been detained at the Jose Fabella Center, 40 from Manila, while the others are from nearby Quezon City and Pasay City. The Manila city government reported that authorities had “rescued” at least 141 street children as of November 10, dozens of whom were sent to Boys Town.
Workers from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority whitewash the walls of the metro line along EDSA, Manila's main highway, in time for the APEC Summit that begins on November 16, 2015. November 13, 2015.
© 2015 Carlos Conde/Human Rights Watch
“Dario,” a scavenger arrested on a street near Roxas Boulevard, said that the development authority personnel who detained him on November 11 were “brutal.” “They were merciless,” Dario told Human Rights Watch. “They took our things or did not allow some of us to bring our belongings.” He and his wife have been held in custody at the Jose Fabella Center, where they spoke to Human Rights Watch.
