Erap restores defaced Lacson statue

MANILA, Philippines - The bronze statue of the late Manila mayor Arsenio Lacson has been restored and returned to its original site facing Plaza Rajah Sulayman along Roxas Boulevard, Mayor Joseph Estrada said yesterday.

Estrada, who has repeatedly said Lacson is his idol, had ordered the restoration of Lacson’s statue when he assumed the post of mayor in June.

“Manila is not Manila without any mention of mayor Lacson. He transformed the capital city into a show window of development to the world and it is but fitting to treat the memorial of a hero with respect,” Estrada said.

He added that he has commissioned another statue of Lacson to be erected in front of the city hall.

Lacson’s children Millie Lacson-Lapira, Bingo Lacson and Arsenic Lacson, as well as all his grand children and relatives, expressed their appreciation to Estrada. 

In a statement, they thanked Estrada for “rising above partisan politics” and for “his sense of propriety and history by giving proper recognition and respect for a good man who served Manila so very well.”

In July 2012, the Lacsons wrote to the city government to restore the statue, commission in 2003 by then mayor Lito Atienza.

The sculpture, a work by artist Julie Lluch, showed Lacson reading a newspaper on a park bench. It lost both arms and the broadsheet to vandals when it was relocated to a dark spot near the United States embassy after Typhoon Pedring struck it down in 2011.

Lacson was the first Manila mayor to be elected to three terms, during which he established the Manila Zoo, Ospital ng Maynila, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, and the country’s first underpass in Quiapo.

Lacson was considered the most likely presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party for the 1965 elections when he died of a stroke in 1962 at the age of 49.