Treating ‘street families’ like stray dogs

I AM appalled by the report about how the Manila Department of Social Welfare (MDSW) is treating “street families”—they are rounded up like stray dogs that need to be caught and impounded. In the news report titled “Manila targeting homeless 24/7” (Metro, 1/20/16), the MDSW officer in charge, Dr. Arnold Pangan, said they would work in shifts every day to achieve the city’s target of “zero street dwellers” by the end of the month—as if the MDSW is targeting a threat to society.

When people lose their jobs and they do not have money to pay rent, they end up living in the streets. If their homes are demolished, they end up living in the streets. If their informal community is razed by fire, they end up living in the streets. And when living in the streets, no one employs them. So they end up making a living off the streets, searching through garbage for recyclables, or selling cigarettes, flowers and what have you to commuters and pedestrians.

Yet street dwellers are normal people, only their fate has turned bad. The worst thing we can do to them is to round them up in the night with the help of the police, bring them to a “Reception and Action Center” (RAC) and treat them like prisoners. It is a violation not only of their dignity but also of their freedom. Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman should not condone this.

Believe it or not, a lot of these street families send their children to school. Every morning they pay P5 for a jug of water to bathe their children before sending them to school. The children come “home” from school to their pushcarts or street corners—and play just like normal children, albeit in the streets. And when they are rounded up in the middle of the night and treated like criminals and deprived of their freedom, what happens to the children? They are traumatized, and deprived of their right to education. To make matters worse, the meager but hard-earned possessions they have are confiscated, including the school bags and uniforms! Would we allow this done to our children? Why do we allow our government to treat poor people as if their basic human rights and dignity do not matter?

The government claims that it will keep the families in the RAC and then transfer them to Boystown before they are relocated somewhere to start a new life. But this program is not sustainable because there is no work where they are relocated.

Government policymakers should first live with the poor so they can formulate policies that will work in helping the poor.

Until they find a more sustainable way of relocating and providing street families a dignified way of life, the MDSW and the Department of Social Welfare and Development must stop this practice of rounding up and locking up street families.

—DIDIT VAN DER LINDEN, didit.vanderlinden@gmail.com