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A group of German visitors went with the staff of Preda Foundation
May 5 and 6 to visit the children at the Reception and Action Center
and the Manila Youth Reception Center (MYRC) to bring snacks and
drinks and see the condition of the children detained as prisoners.
In the action center, the kids are 10 years old and below and live
in an empty room. Since our last exposé on this, the children were
allowed to watch TV for a while in the dining room instead of
looking at the bare wall all day. Still, they look down from barred
windows on the second floor. But on our previous visit, we were
shocked to see that two strangely half-dressed young men with dyed
hair and strange ways were allowed access to these little children.
They were not social workers, not in uniform, no IDs and clearly not
qualified to be there.
They seemed to be in charge with authority. The
little kids were following their orders and were clearly frightened
of them. The danger of abuse to the children was present and
alarming. The Council for the Welfare of Children ought to have
professional social workers and psychologists visit the children and
talk to them if they have been abused.
There must be something bad to hide if charity
workers are forbidden to visit the children and bring them food.
It’s what Jesus of Nazareth commanded us to do. This situation at
the RAC and MYRC is harmful to children. The sub-human conditions
are a violation of RA 7610, PD 603 and RA 9344 and the international
conventions on the rights of the child. That’s why they don’t
want us to visit. They are violating the law and harming the youth
and children.
That’s one thing that former senator, now
mayor of Manila Alfredo Lim, really abhors. He is a strict
law-and-order mayor and his own son, recently arrested for drug
offenses, will face the full wrath of the law. We expect him to
investigate the subhuman conditions and the malnutrition of the
inmates with a short walk from his office. He will see that this is
a cruel and unusual punishment of children and he will order it
changed immediately. He is that kind of a man.
We were also forbidden to visit the youth
detained in the MYRC. But we know from previous visits, photographic
evidence and the testimony of former inmates that it is a horrible
dungeon and the kids are always hungry, deprived and live worse than
animals. The authorities have barred all outsiders from seeing the
subhuman conditions. If there is nothing to hide, why bar visits by
charitable groups such as Preda workers who are licensed and
accredited by the DSWD?
The MYRC authorities are acting like the Burmese
generals. They want us to leave the relief supplies and go away. We
will take care of it, they say. There is no guarantee that the foods
and donations will get to the needy and hungry children. They ought
not to blame the staff of Mayor Lim for this. I advise the good
mayor to lease out the entire compound for development into a
ten-story building with a commercial ground floor, a floor for the
city offices, another for the courts and one for the social
services. With the earnings from the rent and lease, he can build a
model children’s home on the city land in Marikina.
preda@info.com.ph
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