ALL-SEEING. CDC President-CEO Arthur Tugade presents the Clark command center to BCDA President-CEO Arnel Casanova, Mabalacat Mayor Marino Morales and other officials after its inauguration Monday.
Photo by Bong Lacson
ANGELES CITY– On the heels of reports that the government had rounded up street children to hold them elsewhere during Pope Francis’ recent visit to Manila comes now a more explicit arrangement to keep street kids and beggars invisible in commercial Barangay Balibago here for the duration of the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit being held at nearby Clark Freeport up to Feb. 7.
Balibago Chairman Rodelio “Tony” Mamac, in a memorandum dated last Jan. 14, asked “all bars and clubs within the jurisdiction of Barangay Balibago” to donate P100 per day to keep the children and beggars off the streets “for the period Jan. 21 to Feb. 7 during APEC activities in Angeles City.”
His memorandum, allegedly based on an agreement reached in his office with the directors of the League of Angeles City Entertainers and Managers (LACEM), said the move was in “support of the local security plan and in order that no street children/ mendicant/beggars will be seen loitering (and) thus ensure uninterrupted conduct and pass of all APEC participants, VIP’s, guests and foreign observers.”
“The Office of the Mayor, the Office of the Punong Barangay, the Balibago Business Establishments Association (BBEA), the LACEM, and the Philippine National Police will conduct clearing operation of all streetchildren/mendicant/beggars and provide them the necessary safekeeping within the APEC period,” Mamac said in his memorandum.
The memorandum did not say where the children and beggars were held. Mamac further said in the memo that voluntary donations of P100 per day would be solicited from all entertainment establishments and clubs in his barangay “for the rescue and safekeeping” of the target groups.
He named four persons as authorized collectors of the daily P100 donations. Those named were Leonardo Nicdao, Christopher Muldong, Rodel Dulay, and Reynald Gueco. During Pope Francis’ recent visit, reports surfaced that the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had rounded up street children and held them elsewhere for the duration of the papal visit.
The House committee on Metro Manila development is now set to probe reports that the kids were forcibly removed from Manila during the visit. The probe was prompted by Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon, who said there is a need to look into media reports that the government rounded up street children in Manila and locked them in municipal detention centers or in resorts in the provinces to temporarily “clear the streets” of the country’s capital during the fiveday papal visit. Ridon said the panel is expected to summon Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman to appear before the House and explain the actions of her agency.
A report published in British tabloid Daily Mail Online quoted Fr. Shay Cullen, founder of non-government organization Preda Foundation, as saying that detained children were “locked up in a dungeon” and kept under dire circumstances.
Another report released by TIME quoted Soliman, noting that about a hundred homeless families were indeed taken off Roxas Boulevard and brought to Chateau Royal Resort in Batangas province under DSWD’s modified conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.
These families remained in the resort for the whole duration of the papal visit, TIME reported. Ridon said that Soliman’s admission that her agency indeed hid some 100 families in a resort in Batangas reeks of hypocrisy.” “In an effort to look good while under the international limelight, the government just swept the problems it cannot solve under the rug.
Jailing street children or stashing their families away in a resort speaks volumes of the Aquino administration’s stage-managed style of leadership,” he said. The lawmaker also said it is “deplorable” for DSWD to spend money under the modified CCT to whitewash poverty.
At Clark, some investors urged the statefirm Clark Development Corp. to spend some of its reported P2.7 billion income to help street children in nearby communities.
