Naga CSWDO clearing streets of abandoned children, beggars

By Ana-Liza S. Macatangay NAGA CITY --- No more children and loitering elderly persons in the city’s streets. Hopefully. The Naga City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) is determined and is in fact on its toes running after children and old unaided men and women who have been abandoned in the streets while they beg for alms, act as car watchers, and scavenge or pester passersby for food. CSWD Chief Annable SJ Vargas said they are being assisted by personnel of Task Force COMET or the City Ordinances Monitoring, Enforcement and Tracking as an augmentation force of the Naga City police Offfice and other concerned agencies. Vargas explained they are doing the rescue operations, especially if it would show that parents of the children and relatives of the elderly persons were remiss on their responsibilities or had simply abandoned them. The CSWD chief revealed that in the last 6 months, they had rescued 13 mentally challenged persons, 6 of them Naga residents, while the rest came from other towns and provinces. She said the rescued persons were either brought to the Don Suzano Mental Hospotalin Cadlan, Pili, Camarines Sur or sent back home to their families to be taken care of. She also said they had netted 15 more street children, most of them residents of the city. They underwent counseling before they were brought home to their parents while the others who had no families in the city were taken to the Naga City Children’s Home. Three more beggars, one street adult, and 5 elderlies who came from other places are now being processed to be turned over to their respective LGU social welfare offices and returned to their own families. Meanwhile, 13 students who were about to undergo hazing in Malabsay Falls in Bgy. Panicuason were rescued by the Naga City Police Station 4. They were sent home to their parents for counseling. In a related development, a school guidance counselor has also pointed to the police at least 9 students suspected to be using illegal drugs.