At Boys Town, regrets over lost glory

(Third of a series)

Ernesto Beren, 61, remembers the Manila Boys Town of old with fondness. He recalls that the 23-hectare institution had a rustic landscape, surrounded as it was by trees, and huge grounds that gave him and his fellow young wards plenty of room to play.

The life it offered was not exactly ideal for the 10-year-old boy since he had to be away from his family, but the priests who ran the place made sure the boys felt safe and loved. And while daily chores were included in their daily schedule of study and play, Beren himself says these only helped instill in the wards discipline and good values.

Beren spent a decade at Boys Town, leaving it only after he graduated from high school. Not long after he left the institution that nurtured him, he traveled to Denmark, along with other former Boys Town wards, as part of the official Philippine gymnastics team to the World Qualifying Championship. There, he and fellow former Boys Town ward Norman Henson qualified for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

It was at Boys Town that Beren became a world-class gymnast. Back then the Town had a strong athletic tradition, thanks to its administrator, Fr. Jose Mirasol, who initiated sports activities for the wards and tapped expert trainers for them. To this day, Beren remains a devoted athlete and conducts regular gymnastics training sessions at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

Fr. Mirasol’s religious order has long relinquished administration of Boys Town, and the endowments the institution receives today are being stretched to the limits just so the Town can still provide care and education for underprivileged boys — as well as girls and abandoned elderly.

But up until a couple of years ago, wards at the Parang, Marikina institution had few complaints, and felt themselves blessed to be able to live at Boys Town, where each cottage has a house parent to watch over a maximum of 20 wards.

The dark side

According to several wards and employees, Boys Town has acquired a dark side ever since Daniel Cabangangan was appointed its officer in charge in April 2004. Instead of garnering medals and honors for the institution, as their predecessors had done, several wards in the present Boys Town say they have been receiving mostly abuse from Cabangangan and the volunteers he had recruited.

Although many of the boys are determined to stay on, one teenager described by his teachers as being bright and full of potential has gone missing after being mauled one night with several other wards.

Wards and Town insiders say Cabangangan has gotten away so far with all sorts of abuses — including the alleged molestation of some boys, condoning of the physical abuse of several wards and new recruits by his posse of young men — because he is said to have powerful backers at Manila City Hall. The city government has jurisdiction over Boys Town.

Cabangangan denied such accusations in a recent interview. Dr. Jose Baranda, head of Manila’s social services department, meanwhile maintains that there has been no abuse of wards at Boys Town, and refuses to say much more. Cabangangan used to be with the same department before he transferred to Boys Town in 2003 as administrative officer.

Former Boys Town administrator Jean Joaquin says she came to know Cabangangan only after he began working for the institution. Having had no problems with him, she decided to recommend Cabangangan to replace her in 2004, when she moved up as assistant head of Manila’s social services department. That, however, was only after her first choice, Boys Home OIC Leonila Borja, turned down the chance to be her successor.

Town and City Hall insiders interviewed for this report do not mention Joaquin when they talk of people perceived as Cabangangan’s allies. But they do point to Baranda, as well as to Ryan Ponce, Mayor Jose "Lito" Atienza’s special assistant for social services.

Powerful allies

Boys Town lies within Ponce’s sphere of responsibilities, but Town personnel and insiders say that the young man often bypasses the institution’s offices during his visits there and instead goes straight for the fighting-cock farm located inside the complex. He sometimes also visits the piggery, which some insiders estimate could hold at least 100 heads at any given time.

Current and former Boys Town personnel say that poultry and pig-raising were allowed in the past inside the complex. But they say these were strictly for the wards’ and in-house staff’s consumption, and were never on the scale they are today. Certainly, too, there were no cocks being raised for sabong (cockfighting).

Ponce has yet to reply to written queries. Cabangangan, for his part, denied the existence of a gamecock farm in Boys Town. There are only poultry, he said, adding that by then all the chickens had already been killed and fed to the wards.

But a recent visit to Boys Town confirmed the existence of a cock farm — complete with individual perches for the fighting cocks, which one insider estimated to number between 500 and 700.

The area — which occupies a long stretch of land in the complex — is restricted to Boys Town personnel who have reportedly been tasked to manage the farm, assisted by outsiders hired to help tend to the cocks. One of those at the farm reluctantly admitted he was not in the employ of Boys Town, although he was there to look after the cocks.

Boys Town insiders say that the farm is being run for profit by some individuals with ties to the Town management. The beneficiaries do not include Boys Town, which has sometimes even paid for pigs raised at the complex and then were slaughtered for the meals of the wards.

According to Osita Mariano, OIC of the Girls Home (one of four centers in the complex), and Boys Home’s Borja, their units were made to each pay P8,000 for a "Boys Town" pig that wound up as a dish during an event at the institution.

As for the fighting-cock farm, Town personnel would probably sell the cocks gladly if the animals belonged to the institution, if only to augment the funds the complex gets from donors like the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). As it is, they say, some personnel have resorted to experimenting with plants to treat minor ailments among the wards.

(To be concluded)