Street children in Manila

FILIPINO FOCUS

Vol. XVI

No. 1

JANUARY 2004

World Mission Archives

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Street Roaming

by Sonny Evangelista

CHILDREN IN THE STREETS OF MANILA

Fifteen-year old Tisoy was one of the street children cruising around the tourist section of Ermita in Manila. In the evenings he, together with the other street children, his peers, would go to the Kanlungan Drop-In Center at Malate in Manila, where they would get a warm meal and a dry place to sleep.

Before meeting him at the center, he was already living in the streets for years, enjoying the adventurous freedom he never realized while living with his parents and seven siblings in the province. He ran away from his family for reasons he would not
elaborate, as in the cases among the street children.

Many would say that their parents maltreated them, others would say their parents were too strict. A few would say a member of the family or a close relative sexually abused them.

A life in the street

He has been in the streets for the past five years, roaming the streets of Manila, enjoying the freedom he never realized while still living with his parents and seven siblings. He enjoyed the company of his peers, though sometimes they would quarrel among themselves, for some petty reason. It is also among his peers that he began to sniff glue. Sometimes, a man would give him ‘shabu’ to try.

Once, the sociologist at the center said, Tisoy was able to take the right turn, on his own accord. He was able to raise some money and with that, he purchased cigarettes which he peddled in the streets.

It worked for six days. All the money he earned, he surrendered to Kanlungan's executive directress for safekeeping. Everything was turning swell for Tisoy. Until one day, he joined his peers on a game of "cara-cruz" (heads or tails), leaving his cigarette box on the side. But before he knew it, somebody stole his box. With that experience, he was fed up in earning a decent life. He continued his free-willing ways, surviving through petty crimes in the streets. Until he grew older and landed at the national penitentiary.

That was many years ago. Recently in a visit at the Bilibid Prison, this writer saw Tisoy again. He was been charged with robbery and possession of drugs. His facial expression has changed. No longer a child, but an adult who has seen and experienced the depths of the gutters. On his arm is "Robie" tattooed on his arm, the name of his new found friend, a young man convicted of drug peddling and whose father is said to be a big-time drug dealer.

It was the first time that Tisoy landed inside Bilibid. During his younger years, he would be held at the Manila detention center for minors in the outskirts of Manila called "Boys' Town." But as many of these street children, you can never keep them enclosed for so long. It is not of their nature. Thus, several times he was able to escape from the "town" despite the high fence.

A long lived problem

The phenomenon of street children probably began in the 1980s, when the country's economy was at its lowest. They stowed-away from vessels from the south, they hitched on buses, all coming from different parts of the country and finally converged in Manila. Then, there were no centers for street children and the government's social welfare agency was unprepared for the issue.

Based on data from UNESCO (U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) there are around 1.5 million street children nationwide and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) estimates a yearly increase of 630,000. However, these are merely estimates since not one organization has exact data on their numbers.

Attempts to help

One of the first street children centers in Manila is Bahay Tuluyan (Welcome House), an organization established in 1989 with the aim of empowering the children.

Stanton Schneider, then 12 years old, was among the first to enter the center in Malate. "It did not have a name then. We would call it 'bahay tuluyan' and that's the way it was eventually called." Then, the children would come and go, come in for the free meals and a decent place to sleep in. For him it was his refuge where he could read at the center's small library, away from the noisy community where his family lives.

Through the years, he has grown with the center, which has now developed into reaching out to children whose parents live in nearby poor communities. About 2,000 children now frequent the center. "They come because they want to learn something," says program coordinator Deng Buenaventura. Seldom is it now with the dole-out, i.e. free meals. "We ask their parents to share with the food while we give their children education in return. Everybody gives in his/her share for the children."

Through alternative education, "the children teach the children," says guidance councilor Alay Gerlock. This consists of literacy, numeracy and, most important of all, the Convention on the Rights of Children. Through funding from the Church of Sweden, the center was able to acquire a piece of land in Tiaong, Quezon, about 250 kilometers from Manila. The idea behind this program is to have the children attend the nearby schools and live in the farm with foster parents, an elderly couple who teaches them the Filipino family values - a trait which many street children in Manila hardly know. <WM