PUBLIC commuters and motorists going in and out of Manila over the weekend are advised to avoid the coastal area whose roads were ordered closed by the City Hall this weekend.
Mayor Joseph E. Estrada directed the Manila Traffic and Parking Bureau (MTPB) to coordinate with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and the Philippine National Police to implement the rerouting of traffic to minimize gridlock during the “Worldwide Walk vs Poverty” of Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) and the Felix Manalo Foundation Inc. (FMFI) on May 6.
About 1 million people are expected to attend the walk for charity, expected to be a record-breaking walkathon activity.
Estrada said the road closure will start at midnight of May 5 in preparation for the event, which will begin at 6 a.m. on May 6 along Roxas Boulevard up to the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta, Manila.
These areas will then become accessible to the public once the walkathon ends in the evening, starting at 10 p.m.
The local chief executive ordered Manila Police District Director Police Supt. Joel Napoleon Coronel to cooperate with the INC and the FMFI to ensure the orderliness of this activity and the safety of the participants.
Estrada will lead the milestone attempt of the organizers to surpass the record they set four years ago, when they first held it with a goal to raise funds for their various medical missions and other livelihood programs.
Estrada expressed hope that poor communities in the country’s capital would be among the beneficiaries of the event to be conducted at 358 sites in 44 different countries, 33 territories and across 18 time zones.
“The INC and the city government of Manila are always partnering for the goal of providing assistance to the many impoverished Filipinos nationwide,” he said in Filipino.
In 2014 the Philippines successfully broke two world records with this walkathon-for-a-cause dedicated to the victims of Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) in 2013.
Guinness World Record adjudicator Kirsty Bennet told Filipinos the “INC Worldwide Walk 2014” has beaten the record for largest charitable walk in 24 hours after drawing 519,221 participants.
The proceeds helped finance the INC’s first-ever resettlement and eco-farming community in Leyte—the most devastated province by the strongest typhoon that ever happened in history.
Held in one day across 135 sites in 29 countries and 13 time zones, it also outdid the record for the largest charity walk in a single event with the recorded 175,409 participants in the 1.6-kilometer walkathon in Roxas Boulevard, Manila.
