Erap orders late mayor’s statues restored

MANILA, Philippines - Mayor Joseph Estrada has ordered the city engineer’s office to start restoring two statues of the late Manila mayor Arsenio Lacson.

He said that for the past several years, two bronze statues of Plaza Goiti in Sta. Cruz and Baywalk were left disfigured.

“This is not the way to treat a hero,” Estrada said, adding that he would commission another Lacson statue that will be installed in front of the city hall.

The Sta. Cruz statue was commissioned by the late mayor Ramon Bagatsing and done by sculptor Ed Castrillo.

In 2002, then mayor Lito Atienza commissioned sculptor Julie Lluch to do another statue of Lacson. This statue was damaged during a storm surge in 2011.

Lacson, who was mayor from 1952 to 1962, established the Ospital ng Maynila, Manila Zoo, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, and the country’s first underpass in Quiapo.