EDITORIAL - Explore the best solutions

One sad sight that has become common today is the sight of people who don’t have homes, don’t have much in the way of clothes, and not even much in awareness as they appear to wander the streets in a perpetual daze.

We normally call them “taong grasa”, although some politically-correct sectors would rather refer to them as psychotic vagrants.

Normally, they are harmless and keep out of the way of others. But this was not the case in Consolacion Town a few days ago when such a person, half-clad --and thankfully the lower half-- and with long, unkempt hair, was seen attacking bystanders and stealing food whenever he could.

He was later taken into custody and those who did were kind enough to give him a shirt and a haircut. He was determined to have come from Cebu City.

People like him aren’t so uncommon. Those who live in Cebu City may have now become familiar with the sight of another vagrant who wanders around totally naked.

How do we deal with the problem of psychotic vagrants? There is no easy answer to this. We can’t exactly open our homes to them because we don’t know what they are suddenly capable of. We can’t just round them up and expect them to stay in one area because that would be violating their freedom.

Even communicating with them can become a challenge because they may not be able to comprehend what our intentions are. Then again, if they are able to explain who they are, where they came from, and how they ended up the way they did, they may no longer have family to look after them.

The ideal situation is to have them housed in a mental facility that can look after and take care of them, with the long-term goal of curing them of their mental illness and reintegrating them back into society as productive individuals. At least those who still have hope of regaining all their faculties.

But can our government really afford to do that, considering it cannot even deal with the homeless and the street dwellers that can be found in almost all highly-urbanized cities?

All humane and sensible solutions to such a problem must be explored. We certainly don’t want a repeat of such an incident.