City holds anti-mendicancy meeting

The Anti-Mendicancy Task Force held its 4th committee meeting, December 5, presided City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) head Liza Bulayungan together with Councilor Edison Bilog, attended by government agency representatives and the city’s punong barangays.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong formed the task force aimed to implement developmental programs, provide support, monitor mendicancy through policies and inform the public through information and education campaign outputs.

The meeting’s agenda included latest IEC outputs from the Public Information Office – City Mayor’s Office, incorporating previous feedback and the presentation of Project CARES (Community-driven, Action-oriented, Responsible, and Environmental Sustainability) initiatives spearheaded by the CSWDO.

Federico Gatchalian of PIO-CMO presented its IEC outputs, specifically through posters and short-form videos followed by the sharing of insights from the Baguio City Police Office, Department of Social Welfare and Development-CAR, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, Persons with Disability Office, City Health Service Office, Commission on Human Rights, Department of Interior and Local Government-CAR, and barangay officials. The recommendations include creating another video for psychotic vagrants, re-layouting the poster to focus on the slogan, finalizing the slogan and attaching a QR code for easy access.

Bulayungan then presented Project CARES, an approach to address the growing presence of street dwellers and vagrants in the Summer Capital and highlighting the importance of collaboration between government agencies to ensure the success of anti-poverty initiatives.

“Project CARES consolidates all the proposed interventions on how to treat street dwellers in the city of Baguio, because meron siyang component na reintegration and empowerment support coming from the LGU Baguio ang kung saan nanggaling itong mga street dwellers natin,” she said.

Bulayungan hopes that a meeting with LGUs from which these street dwellers came from will take place and that a Memorandum of Agreement will be prepared for monitoring and coordination purposes.

For his part, Bilog stressed the need to amend the current ordinance, Executive Order 097, and consolidate past ordinances to further bolster the anti-mendicancy law. – Jaeda Pad-eng, PIO intern / Gaby Keith