Team DailyPedia
A report by Chiara Zambrano of ABS-CBN News on Monday, November 16, revealed that homeless families are allegedly being held against their will inside the Boystown Complex.
Reportedly, the Manila Social Welfare Division had them taken off the streets.
“Sabi po nila pakakain lang po kami. Pagdating dito ‘yun pala ikukulong lang po kami,” said Marilou, a woman taken from Almeda.
(They said they will feed us. When we arrived, they just imprisoned us.)
In her interview with Zambrano, Marilou claimed that they weren’t allowed to go back to the streets because of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Summit which is being held from November 16 to 20 in several venues in Metro Manila.
In a recent report by Manila Bulletin, the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) revealed the government’s plan to hide street dwellers by giving them P4,000 each to rent homes during the APEC summit.
UNA spokesman and provincial coordinator Mon Ilagan said, “Window dressing poverty remains as this administration’s biggest moral scandal. And now it is resorting to the same tactics it did when Pope Francis visited Manila in January.”
Moreover, a report by non-government organization Human Rights Watch accused government officials of taking hundreds of homeless families including 140 street children from the streets and informal settlements since November 9. Reportedly, the families were brought to Boystown in Marikina, Reception and Action Center in Manila, and the Jose Fabella Center in Mandaluyong City.
In January this year, a report by the Daily Mail UK alleged Philippine government officials of “caging” of street children in preparation for the arrival of Pope Francis in the country.
Then Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Manuel Roxas II immediately denied the British tabloid’s report.
Featured image credits to Facebook/ABS-CBN News.
