“We are condemning the violent dispersal by authorities here and elsewhere,” Bea Arellano of Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap said, “While there are still no decent jobs available for the Filipino people, the government should allow vendors to sell, even on sidewalks, to earn a living.”
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — It seemed like it was just another ordinary day for Lyka Emam, 32 years old and seven months pregnant, when she brought out her salt cart in Kaunlaran Extension, Manggahan-Litex, along Commonwealth Avenue early morning of September 8. Around 6 p.m., however, police officers and a sidewalk clearing operations team of Quezon City came.
Panoy and Lyka with their two children. Lyka, a vendor in Kaunlaran Extension, Manggahan-Litex, was 7 months pregnant when she died after the violent sidewalk clearing operation and dispersal on Sept. 8. (Photo courtesy of Panoy Emam / bulatlat.com)
“They confiscated my wife’s salt cart. She pleaded with them but a police officer kicked her cart, causing it to bump her stomach,” Panoy Emam, 26, Lyka’s husband, told Bulatlat in Filipino.
Lyka continued pleading with a high-ranking police officer, who, according to the residents of Kaunlaran, is a colonel, but was told that they were still waiting for the orders of a “higher” official. “She went home empty-handed,” Panoy said.
Around 11 p.m. that night, Lyka started to complain about pains in her stomach. Panoy and Lyka’s sister Mela Ismael brought her to the Fairview General Hospital. “We were still in the taxi on our way to the hospital when she died,” Panoy said.
“She was urinating blood,” Mela said, “It happened so fast and before we knew it, she died.”.... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/09/18/violent-sidewalk-clearing-operations-leave-pregnant-vendor-dead/
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