Relatives of Payatas victims driven out of Quezon City Hall

Victims of the July 10 Payatas tragedy tried to camp out yesterday in front of Quezon City Hall to pressure Mayor Ismael Mathay Jr. to give in to their long-standing demands.

"We’re not moving out of here until he listens to us," said Boy Espiritu, secretary general of the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay), an urban poor group which has organized residents of the collapsed dumpsite. Espiritu led some 50 supporters at 9 a.m. in a march through city hall grounds. They put up a barricade in front of the city hall.

But anti-riot policemen drove them out of the city hall complex just before 6 p.m. yesterday. A platoon of riot policemen, backed by a team of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) personnel, pushed the group outside the complex onto the edge of the empty City Hall Lagoon. There, they held a "people’s Mass" with a white robed priest in protest of the dispersal.

Delia Badion, who heads the July 10 Payatas Victims Organization (J10PVO-KADAMAY), said the city government has refused to release to members the remains of their loved ones recovered from the dumpsite. "This, despite our having provided the forensic team with every means of identification we have," she said, adding that 34 of her colleagues have yet to receive from the forensic team headed by Rachel Fortun the remains of about 50 of their loved ones.

The team has expressed difficulty in identifying the remains because they were already in an advanced state of decomposition.

The J10PVO-KADAMAY members have filed a P1-billion damage suit against the city government, the Metro Manila Development Authority, the owners of the land on which the dumpsite was built and REN Transport, the private firm hired by the city to collect garbage, which runs to 3,000 tons a day.

Badion said her group is asking the city government to resume recovery operations at the 15-hectare dump, where at least 234 people died.

She accused city officials of using the unreleased remains of victims of the tragedy to pressure their loved ones to drop the class suit they have filed with Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 97 Judge Oscar Leviste.

While the J10PVO-KADAMAY members were assembling, Mathay gave an interview over the radio where he denied the group’s allegations. He said the city government is doing what it can to ease up the situation at the dumpsite , which has been shut down. He also said the city government has provided housing at ERAP City in Rizal for residents dislocated by the trash-slide.

He announced a supplemental P100-million appropriation for the city’s garbage collection. He said the city has opened public bidding to move garbage collected from the city to the San Mateo landfill in Rizal. The results of the bidding will be announced on Saturday.