Giant Wall Constructed At Poverty Conference, Used To Block View Of Slums

An international conference that will focus primarly on poverty will be held in the Philippines capital this year and delegates attending that conference may find something missing, the slums of Manila. That’s because the city is building a giant makeshift wall that will temporarily block the view of the cities poorest people.

The move seems strange since conference attendees will be there to discuss abject poverty.

Building the temporary wall will block out a garbage-strewn creek and a sprawling area of slums which most attendees will likely already know exists in the city, in fact the wall could become a point of discuss in and of itself.

The conference’s official name is the ‘Asian Development Bank conference” and Phillipines officials hope that those bank officials will see the country as “open for business” without examining the slums as they pass by and then brush off the thought of doing business in such a poor area.

In defending the move Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said “any country will do a little fixing up before a guest comes.”

That may be true but putting up a temporary wall is hardly doing a “little fixing up” before the conference, if nothing else its a band-aid officials can later rip off.

Objecting to the wall in the Philippine Communist Party who pointed out that first lady Imelda Marcos was called out when she herself tried to hide squatter colonies that exist all over the country.

Do you think hiding poverty in a poverty ravaged area is a smart move or should the country have used that backdrop to prove why they need to attract businesses into the country?