BAGUIO CITY – The City Social Welfare and Development Officer (CSWDO) is discouraging the public from giving alms to mendicants roaming the city’s central business district.
CSWDO Betty Fangasan gave the advice in a meeting with members of the reactivated Task Force on Anti-Mendicancy presided by City Mayor Mauricio Domogan.
The meeting was held to review each member agency’s functions and to firm up rescue operations in efforts to rid the city of the increasing number of mendicants especially this Panagbenga and the coming Holy Week.
Fangasan said residents and visitors of this resort city should refrain from giving alms to mendicants as this will just encourage them to continue the bad practice of earning money. She added that always giving them money will just worsen the situation of the beggars by making them lazy to look for better source of living.
She proposed that these individuals who want to be of help to these mendicants should instead be foster parents to them.
Domogan meanwhile advised the policemen and other members of the task force who will be conducting rescue operations to coordinate properly with the CSWDO and the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
The social welfare and development offices are tasked to bathe the rescued mendicants before they accompany them to the bus companies who shall transport the non-resident mendicants to their places of origin.
The task force has noted the proliferation of members of a tribe who are in the city conducting begging activities the past months./JDP/ABD- PIA CAR
