A TOTAL of 51 street children were rescued by the Women and Children’s Protection Desk (WCPD) of the Cebu City Police Office in its fourth Operation sa Gugma last Thursday evening.
Senior Insp. Sheila Gurtiza, chief of WCPD, told Sun.Star Cebu that the operation was conducted in coordination with the Cebu City Commission for Street Children and Department of Social Welfare Services (DSWS).
“We conducted another one of our Operation sa Gugma because this will be our subject for the case conference of children whose parents let them roam around the streets even after they signed an oath of undertaking,” Gurtiza said.
The parents who let their kids return to the streets to beg will be charged with violation of a provision of Republic Act 7610, as they “neglected” them, the WCPD chief said.
She said some of the street children were rescued in the areas of Colon St., Fuente and B. Aranas Ext.
The operation took place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Five social workers from the DSWS conducted the profiling on the kids, Gurtiza said.
The Cebu City Commission for Street Children was led by its executive, Redentor Betito, while the DSWS team was headed by Margarita Tsutsumi.
After the street kids were rounded up, they were fed and profiled in the Community Scout Youth Guidance Center on B. Aranas Ext.
Betito, told Sun.Star Cebu that some of the children who were rescued were the same ones they profiled in their past operations.
“Ang mga namalik nga bata sila maoy walay parents nga ni-claim (Those children who were rescued again were not claimed by their parents),” he said.
The commission has offered the families who were living on the streets of Fuente Osmeña a program where they can avail “cash for work” like as parking attendants. But of the six families who avail of the program, only one stayed.
Betito said they didn’t like being park attendants because it’s too hot.
“Mas dali man gud kuno ang mangayo (Begging is easier),” he said, referring to the families.
He also encouraged advocacy groups who want to conduct feeding programs to the street children to coordinate with their office.
Activity centers will soon be set up in the vicinity of these five areas, which are the Redemptorist Church, Mabolo, Patria De Cebu, Pahina Central and Mambaling, for the feeding projects.