Tuesday, October 31, 2006 Editorials: Dealing with psychotic vagrants
FUNNY how a botched scheme would expose Cebu City Hall’s inadequacies.
The botched scheme is, of course, the attempt by the Anti-mendicancy Task Force to implement the order to clear the city’s streets of psychotic vagrants by bringing them to the mountain barangays and “dumping” them there.
Had barangay officials not complained and media not caught wind of the move, the city’s streets would now have been artificially cleaned, although only temporarily.
Marcosian
And the Marcosian act would have gained more adherents.
Remember then First Lady Imelda Marcos’ attempt to present only the good and the beautiful to visitors, thus the suggestion to cover squatter shanties with high walls?
The same “the end justifies the means” thread runs through many of some local government’s present efforts to look good in time for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in December.
The scheme involving psychotic vagrants is only one.
Not blameless
While top Cebu City Government officials have denied having a hand in it, there’s no denying that misguided Asean summit preparations and the lack of a coherent solution to the problem on psychotic vagrants contributed to what happened.
Task Force officials may have decided on their own to “dump” the psychotic vagrants in mountain barangays, but that probably came to mind only after it became apparent that the original plan of returning them to their relatives wasn’t working.
Now comes the City Council, which has come up with an action plan on psychotic vagrants that is a slightly improved variation of the dump-them-in-the-mountain-barangays scheme.
Careful study
While the Task Force conducted the transfer of the vagrants on the sly, the Council wants it formalized by officially seeking the help of the Association of Barangay Councils.
One gets the feeling, however, that this improved scheme is still not well studied.
Even if they coordinate with the Cebu City Medical Center and the City health and social welfare departments, it is doubtful whether the barangays have the resources, personnel, expertise and even patience to handle the vagrants.
The presence of psychotic vagrants in the city’s streets is but a symptom of a deeper socio-economic problem; it would be good for the City Government to come up with a solution that is long-term and a product of careful study.
