The Caloocan Social Welfare and Development (CSWD) has started to get all street dwellers out of the city’s streets.
According to Nolan B. Sison, officer in charge of the city government’s Public Information Office, the CSWD will bring the street dwellers to several centers of the department so that proper care and assistance would be given to them and to the so-called rugby boys, who sniff solvent.
Sison said the adults and children, who have been found abandoned by their families and relatives, will be brought to the “Tahanang Mapagpala.”
The abused adults and children will be sent to the CSWD Center.
The children who were discovered to have been hooked on rugby or other related chemicals were sent to the “Yakap Bata Center” that was established for children who are “in conflict with the law.”
CSWD’s drive is based on the renewed order of Mayor Oscar G. Malapitan.
Cleaning the streets of street dwellers and rugby boys has been one of the projects of Malapitan since he became mayor of Caloocan City in 2013.
However, Malapitan’s order this time was to “decisively save the families and individuals who took the streets as their homes.”
Malapitan, likewise, ordered the CSWD to also get the children who are hooked on rugby to put an end to their illegal and unhealthy act.
Sniffing rugby or similar chemicals that make a person feel high is against the law. This problem does not exist only in Caloocan City but also in others areas of Metro Manila, especially in Manila, Pasay City and Pasig City. However, the problem is the police do not act on it, reports say.
Philippine Statistics Authority data showed that many poor people in the country rent houses despite being poor. But many are forced to live in the streets because they could not afford to rent a house or a room for P1,000 or even P500 a month.
CSWD has no exact total number of street dwellers and children who use rugby in Caloocan. But Malapitan really wanted to address these problems on street dwelling and rugby boys in a “decisive manner,” according to the CSWD.
