DSWD mulls shelters for tambays

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is planning to build community shelters for street children as the Duterte administration expands its campaign against loiterers or tambay to include minors.

Acting Social Welfare Secretary Virginia Orogo said her agency is talking to local governments, education, health and trade departments to implement the “Silungan ng Barangay” (village shelter) program, to remove young loiterers in the streets.

“We will have talks about the ‘Silungan sa Barangay’ so we can implement it immediately because many children are loitering in the streets,” Orogo said at a press briefing in Malacañang yesterday.

“We are fixing this as a response to the presence of the poor in the streets,” she added.

President Duterte has directed the police to accost loiterers, who he said could cause trouble.

The crackdown on loiterers stirred controversy after 25-year-old Genesis “Tisoy” Argoncillo was killed days after he was jailed for allegedly causing alarm and scandal.

The President, however, was unfazed by the criticisms against his directive and even instructed the police to include minors in the campaign. He also asked law enforcers to ignore the criticisms and to continue arresting violators of local ordinances.

Orogo said the plan is to ask barangays to allot spaces or buildings that would serve as dwelling place of street children.

She said some villages have allotted space for the street dwellers so the agencies only have to determine how many children could be accommodated.

“We will have case studies for each child so those without parents can be placed in (DSWD) centers,” Orogo said.

She said the agencies and local governments would start talks on the Silungan ng Barangay program on July 1.

“The program to be launched requires a lot of resources so different agencies should work together,” she said.

“I also appeal to our countrymen, especially those in the corporate world, to help the DSWD in this program.”

Persida Acosta, chief of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), said the police should at most issue a stern warning to violators.

“If police arrested them, bring them to barangay officials and remind them… if they were caught half-naked, give them clothes,” Acosta said.

She said the government should provide livelihood to violators to prevent them from loitering and “doing something else.”

Acosta yesterday sought the release of four of the 44 people arrested for violation of several city ordinances in Pasay City.

Two were arrested for drinking in public, one was arrested without a shirt and another for violating the anti jeepney barker ordinance.

Elsewhere, some 700 minors have been “rescued” by the Quezon City Police District in its anti-tambay drive.

There were also 795 individuals arrested for violations of various ordinances, including jaywalking, possession of deadly bladed weapons, anti-barker law and urinating in public places, among others.

Some 686 people were arrested for violating the smoking ban, 479 individuals accosted for being half-naked in public and another 418 arrested for drinking in public.

QCPD director Chief Supt. Joselito Esquivel said there are only 96 violators currently detained out of the thousands they have accosted.