45 street dwellers taken to DSWD facility

MANILA, Philippines - Personnel of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Thursday rescued 45 street dwellers along the NAIA Road in Pasay City as part of an outreach operation at the airport area.

MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino said the 45 street dwellers have been turned over to the care of the Jose Fabella Center in Mandaluyong City. The center is a halfway house for homeless people run by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“We do not want them roaming the streets and pose danger to themselves and motorists passing the area. It is for their own safety that they be brought to a safe place where they will be taken care of,” Tolentino said.

Rolando Macalinao, officer-in-charge of the MMDA's Metropolitan Social Services Office (MMSO), said of those rescued, six are minors, the youngest being three years old, and the oldest, 50.

Macalino added that among those rescued are street urchins known to motorists as “batang hamog” who get involved in petty crimes.

Tolentino said that while at the Jose Fabella Center, the rescued street dwellers will be given temporary shelters and medical assistance.

Many of them will be brought back to their hometowns in the provinces, he added.

The Jose Fabella Center regularly accepts street dwellers, vagrants, and mendicants turned over by the MMDA and other government agencies.

In September last year, MMDA donated 300 capsule beds to the DSWD-run center to help accommodate more street dwellers.