A family living
The Cebu City government will press charges against the street dwellers who will be rounded up anew.
The city made the stern warning following yesterday’s rescue of at least 150 street dwellers and mendicants.
Raquel Arce, head of the city’s Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification and Enhancement ( PROBE) team, said the filing of charges is in consonance with City Ordinance 1631 ( An Anti- Mendicancy Ordinance), which penalizes mendicants soliciting cash and residents giving cash to mendicants. It was passed in 2015.
“Those who will return to the streets and will be rescued again will be sued,” she said.
Cebu City Police Office ( CCPO), for its part, said policemen will conduct a regular patrol to make sure that they will not return to the streets.
The city has conducted a massive rescue operation of homeless street dwellers as a surge of mendicants is expected with the coming of the Yuletide season.
It was also done in compliance with the Department of the Interior and Local Government ( DILG) order to clear the streets of mendicants, carolers, vendors and dwellers.
Earlier, Cebu City Edgardo Labella also ordered the strict implementation of CO 1631.
“This has to be strictly implemented on top of our public health and safety protocols to ensure everyone’s safety,” said Mayor Labella.
Yesterday’ s operation was conducted in partnership with the city’s Anti- Mendicancy Board, the CCPO, the Task Force Kasaligan, the city’s
Environment and Sanitation Team, the Cebu City Medical Center and the City Health Department. PROFILE
All rescued individuals were brought to Plaza Independencia for profiling. They were groomed and checked by medical personnel.
Among the rescued dwellers are Serlita Ejolin, 72, and Narciso Roxas, 48.
Ejolin, a native of Danao City in northern Cebu, said she has been loitering in Cebu City streets and asking for alms for 15 years.
She said poverty has forced her and her husband to leave Danao, thinking that life would be better in Cebu City.
She opted to stay in the city even when her husband died years ago.
On the other hand, Roxas, a water vendor and a native of Leyte province, said he has been living in the streets for 30 years now.
He said there is nothing left for him in Leyte— no house and no family members.
“I have no more family. My father already passed away. I lost everything,” he said in vernacular.
PLANS
The city’s Department of Social Welfare Services is set to identify programs that can be availed of by the street dwellers. The program includes “Balik Probinsya or Balik Barangay.”
Those who are not residents of Cebu City will be brought to a halfway house while their return to their provinces is still being processed.
Cebu City has two halfway houses. One is near Robinson’s Galleria and the other one is Sta. Rita in Barangay Kasambagan. They will stay for one week in the halfway house.
Cebu City residents, on the other hand, will be turned over to their respective barangays.
However, there are still no concrete plans on what to do or where to put the street dwellers from Cebu City who don't really have their own houses.
San Nicolas Proper Barangay Captain Clifford Jude Niñal said he felt so helpless when street dwellers around Taboan Market asked for his help anew.
Niñal has been helping street dwellers/ homeless individuals and even stranded individuals since the start of the lockdown in March due to COVID- 19.
But he was forced to give the street dwellers an ultimatum last month to leave the barangay gym, where they were billeted for weeks, due to ongoing construction projects.
Niñal said he could only hope that the city government will provide a long- term solution to this perennial problem.
Police Colonel Josefino Ligan, CC PO director, hopes the local government units in metro Cebu will join hands to address the issue.
“hopefully, magkahiusa ang mga kasilanganang local government units para ma- address ang problema ug di na mobalik sa dalan,” he said.
He said he will also lobby to the city government to continue with the rescue program to make sure that the homeless people will not go back to the streets.
Moreover, there was also a proposal to conduct rapid testing on the rescued dwellers. —