The plight of street children

Four days from today will mark exactly one year when 10-year-old street child Chastity Mirabiles died after being rounded up along with other street children by police officers. Due to the ongoing political season, this incident and the resulting search for justice that have so far produced zero results have fallen by the wayside and dropped out of the public radar.

While we can hardly expect and in fact discount the possibility of vigilantes taking down those responsible for her death—and point of fact, any of these “vigilantes” operating in Cebu City just happen to target drug suspects and other criminal suspects and thankfully, they aren’t in circulation anymore as far as one can tell—it’s probably reasonable enough to expect updates on the case to see if there is anything that’s being done to serve justice to Mirabiles’s family.

True, the families of these street children should be held into account for allowing them to wander the streets at ungodly hours just to beg for money or food from strangers but that doesn’t mean that local officials should turn a blind eye to it and allow the police to handle them as they see fit.

I just hope the police commit to coordinating with social welfare workers in dealing with these street children, allowing the City Social Welfare Office to do their job in keeping these minors off the streets and into the homes of their parents.

* * *

Speaking of street children, I wondered about the developments in Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s order to the City Legal Office to review a City Council resolution that allows the city government to fund the Parian Drop-In Center for Street children.

A casual search of news stories filed on the issue at Google Search showed that Rama questioned the arrangement between the Cebu City government and the Children of Cebu Foundation Inc. that is said to be headed by Councilor Margot Osmeña, describing it as a “conjugal partnership” since the resolution was passed during the tenure of Rama’s predecessor, former Cebu city mayor and now mayoral rival Tomas Osmeña.

Rather than engaging in a prolonged discourse on the legalities and ethical issues of the arrangement, suffice it to say that the mayor declared his intentions to improve the Parian Drop-In Center which is what really matters at least for the street children whose numbers continue to rise by the day in relation to the rising number of settlers that move into the Queen City of the South.

How the mayor will go about improving these facilities, including the Operation Second Chance center where juvenile offenders are housed, remains to be seen because of the ongoing election season.

But based on how they handled street dwellers during the preparations for both the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and the International Eucharistic Congress (IEC), it appears that the Rama administration is a lot more eager on processing these vagrants and providing them temporary shelter then telling them to move out rather than actually spending time and resources helping them live in the city.

While overpopulation is indeed a major concern, I agree with the others who call on Mayor Rama and his allies to adopt a more rounded, holistic approach to addressing the plight of these settlers who include the street children rather than merely processing them and telling them to return to their homes in the countryside.

It’s certainly far better than having to pose with disadvantaged kids on Facebook in order to convey the message that yes, City Hall and your administration does care for the city’s children.

* * *

Allow me to use this comment by Jet Garigade, Cebu Daily News’s graphic artist that was posted on his Facebook page to end this piece:

“There are a lot of street children that live outside our parishes. Can we not turn our parishes into child-friendly parishes with walk-in facilities, where they could take a bath, eat and study? Our churches are the closest place where they could see God. But they can also be the closest place where our children can see their dreams.”