They hate progress Days after presenting a refurbished Liwasang Bonifacio underpass, City Hall needed to send personnel to clean up the mess from vandals who even advertised the name of their group. PCSANTOS

Manila City Hall’s engineering office had dispatched personnel yesterday to remove graffiti on the walls of the newly-renovated Liwasang Bonifacio underpass.

The city’s engineering department acted without any instruction from Mayor Isko Moreno after it received reports of vandalism. It sent a small team of painters to the underpass to erase the anti-government messages painted on the wall regrettably after a painstaking effort to clean up and redecorate the area.

The almost 50 year-old underpass underwent repair on the instruction of Moreno as part of an overall campaign to restore the beauty of what he branded as the ‘Heritage line’ that spans Mehan Garden, Jones bridge, the iconic Post Office and the City Hall building.

It appears that the defacing of one of the historical centers in the city was deliberate and was organized by critics of the administration.

In a Facebook post, “Panday Sining” called for “all who want to join in a series of graffiti” campaign that would involve a series of vandalism in different parts of the city.

“Panday Sining is calling on the public to join a series of “graffiesta” by transforming the streets as a venue of progressive and militant art form,” it said in a FB post.

The city government, responded through a Twitter post by reminding the group of the existing laws against defacing public properties.

“To all those who dare vandalize public and private property in the nation’s capital, the Manila City government anti-vandalism ordinance is still in effect. Ordinance 7971 prohibits any persons fro, defacing public and private properties.”