Cebu City public warned: Don’t give alms to mendicants or else…

‘Stop mendicancy’ drive to be strictly implemented in Cebu City

AMD chair, Dr. Lucelle Mercado and CCTO Head Raquel Arce showed the ‘stop mendicancy’ poster during a pressconference at the City Hall on Nov. 4. | Photo by Niña Mae Oliverio

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Beware of giving alms to mendicants along Cebu City streets!

Or you might just end up getting a citation ticket and paying a P1,000 fine, or worse, end up cleaning the streets or canals for 4 hours if you cannot pay the fine.

This is the warning given by the Cebu City Anti-Mendicancy Board (AMB) on Monday, November 4, after it launched and will strictly enforce the city’s ‘Stop Mendicancy’ campaign.

This aims to strengthen the city’s anti-mendicancy efforts.

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Mendicants defined

The AMB defined mendicants as those able-bodied adults and minors, who are abandoned and neglected and who ask alms in public places.

These are also people, who don’t have any visible or legal means to support to fend for themselves.

Appropriate way to give alms

Aside from that, mendicants are also prohibited in Cebu City to ask for alms in all public places here including commercial establishments, parks and public utility vehicles.

“Wa ta modiscourage. Giencourage ta nga muhatag pero sa sakto nga lugar,” said Raquel Arce, head of Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) on the giving of alms tosmendicants.

(We are not discouraging anybody. We encourage them to give but at the right place.)

Arce said that the appropriate way to give alms to the mendicants would be to coordinate with the DSWS since their office had the list of recipients to whom they could distribute the alms.

As for the campaign, they are also targeting mendicants, who are seen sleeping on the streets especially during the daytime, as well as those ambulant vendors who do not have any home to sleep or go to.

Reach out to mendicants

Gladys Gay Vaño, executive director of Cebu City Anti-Mendicancy Office (CCAMO), said that their team would conduct reach out operations and bring the mendicants to a shelter managed by Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) at the South Road Properties.

“During daytime, they will go back to the place where they are selling in downtown as long as they don’t sleep on the streets,” Vaño said in Cebuano.

Vaño said that there had been cases of abandoned children on the streets, that was why they needed to bring them to their shelter.

Annie Suico, officer from the DSWS, said that their office would “reach out” to the mendicants.

Reach out operations refers to the rescue operations that they would conduct throughout the implementation of the program, said Suico.

No food, just a place to sleep

Arce, for her part, said in a separate statement that their purpose would be to provide these mendicants a place to sleep but she clarified that they would not be giving out food to them, only a place to rest.

Vaño also said that they would coordinate with the barangays so that the children could go back to their respective families or where they came from.

As for the adults, the AMB said that they would first reprimand the mendicants to stop asking for alms and would be put into the shelter.

But if they do not comply, they will be arrested and the AMB will see what could be the appropriate charges they could file against them.

Mendicancy hotspots

With this information dissemination and implementation of the Anti-Mendicancy campaign, they said they would be hoping that the establishments would cooperate with their office, especially when they put up their posters.

Their hotspot areas include the vicinity of Cebu City Hall, and the barangays Santo Niño, Kamagayan, Kamputhaw, Kalubihan, Capitol Site, Mambaling, San Nicolas, and Dulho Fatima among others.

As for the strict implementation of the campaign, several personnel from the CCAMO in coordination with various offices including the Cebu City Traffic Office (CCTO), DSWS, Cebu City Environmental Sanitation and Enforcement Team (CESET), and Gasa sa Gugma, will be deployed in the city’s streets.