Pinoys in LA clean up Historic Filipinotown marker

LOS ANGELES — Filipino-American community leaders here led a clean-up drive over the weekend to save the newly erected Historic Filipinotown marker from being a garbage dump.

"We cannot wait for the city and let the trash stays," said Dr. Orly Cagampan, vice president of the Rampart Village Neighborhood Council (RNVC). "Some people are really insensitive making the marker their ashtray for their cigarette butts, old clothes and magazines, and even old picture frame."

The marker is located at the Temple/ Silverlake Junction in Historic Filipinotown in Downtown Los Angeles, California. The clean-up was held Sunday, May 31, 2015.

Ms. Bernie Ganon of the Lakambini ng Kalayaan Beauty and Cultural Pageant said: "We wont allow our marker to be trashed."

The marker was unveiled in 2014 after a long delay due to the US economic crisis of 2008. It was a joint project of then-Councilman and now Mayor Eric Garcetti and Rep.Xavier Becerra.

Newly-elected Distirct 13 Council member Mitch O'Farrel inaugrated the marker early 2014.

"The marker is a reflection of the FilAms in Los Angeles, considered to be the economic and political capital of SoCal [Southern California]. If the marker is dirty, then the FilAm community can also be viewed by the thousand of passers by every day as a dirty lot of people," said Sid Balatan, a veteran journalist and social media consultant in Southern California. —KBK, GMA News