Erap to unveil statue of late mayor Lacson

MANILA, Philippines - Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada will unveil today another statue of the late Manila mayor Arsenio Lacson in front of the city hall.

Estrada will inaugurate Lacson’s statue in commemoration of his 101st birth anniversary today.

Lacson’s surviving children Millie Lacson-Lapira, Bingo Lacson, and Arsenic Lacson, together with grandchildren, other relatives and close friends, will attend the event, which will start at 9:30 a.m. Vice Mayor Isko Moreno and other city hall officials and employees will also attend the ceremonies.

“I have always said that 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 give honor to the man considered by myself and by many to be the best mayor the city ever had,” said Estrada, who considers Lacson as his idol.

The new statue, a creation of artist Julie Lluch,   has Lacson’s trademark aviator sunglasses and stands at the Freedom Triangle facing the flag pole of the Manila City Hall, one of the country’s most famous landmarks built in 1939.

Upon assumption into office, Estrada immediately ordered the restoration of the bronze sculpture of Lacson at the Baywalk along Roxas Boulevard, which was neglected and left at the mercy of vandals, vagrants and thieves when it was relocated to a dark spot near the United States embassy after the storm surge brought by Typhoon Pedring damaged the statue in 2011.

The restored bronze figure, also a work of Lluch, had lost both arms and the broadsheet newspaper that Lacson was reading.

The restored image has been placed in its original site at the promenade facing Plaza Rajah Sulayman along Roxas Boulevard.

Estrada also ordered the Parks Development Office and City Engineer’s Office to rehabilitate Lacson’s tomb at the Manila North Cemetery last October while the renovation of the Lacson Underpass in Quiapo will start this January.

Lacson was an athlete, lawyer, journalist, and politician who gained widespread attention as Manila mayor from 1952 to 1962.

He was the city’s first mayor to be re-elected for three terms and his fiery temperament became a trademark of his colorful political and broadcasting career.

During his term, Lacson not only erased the city’s huge debt that he inherited from his predecessor, but also conceptualized and established the Manila Zoo in 1959, Ospital ng Maynila in 1960, the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, and the country’s first underpass in Quiapo.

Lacson was considered as the most likely presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party in the 1965 elections but a stroke ended his life in 1962 at the age of 49.