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Monday, July 17, 2006
CH spearheads ‘homecoming’ of street families in Cebu City
IT WILL be a homecoming of sorts for Cebu City’s street families if the City Government can successfully rid public places of families living there.
City Councilor Gerardo Carillo said the mayor already approved the City’s anti-mendicancy task force’s plan to bring the street families to their hometowns or provinces.
The City has an initial funding of P300,000 from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to implement the “Balik Province” program.
Fare discount
At least four shipping companies also pledged to give the City a 50 percent discount on the fare of families who need to be brought home to their provinces.
“We have the mayor’s approval on this and he already authorized the task force to proceed. So in the coming weeks, we will try to return all of them to their provinces and we might have to coordinate with the Provincial Government on this,” Carillo said in a phone interview.
Families who are originally from Cebu City will be turned over to DSWD or a nongovernment organization (NGO) since there is no relocation site for them, he added.
“We will refer them to DSWD so the agency can identify what NGOs can accommodate them, then perhaps the City will just assist the centers in terms of rehabilitation,” the councilor said.
Request
In a meeting with Mayor Tomas Osmeña last Friday, the task force also requested the mayor for a vehicle that could be used solely for their operations against vagrants, street children and street families.
The mayor also reportedly agreed to augment the funds the DSWD provided.
Carillo, action officer of the task force, already said earlier that the rounding up of vagrants in the city’s streets and parks is part of the City’s anti-mendicancy campaign and is not a beautification project in preparation for the Asean summit.
After rounding up 13 vagrants last week, Carillo said they would focus on families who have made the street, parks, overpass, church grounds and commercial buildings their home.
Since the task force intensified the anti-mendicancy campaign last November, some 230 individuals have already been picked up and were sent back to their families or NGOs, Carillo added. (LCR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 17, 2006 issue)
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