A two-year old girl is reported to be in a critical state at the Philippine Orthopedic Center after suffering from an injury in her neck last Friday during a violent demolition of homes in an urban poor community in Barangay Bignay, Valenzuela City.
A staff of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) who aided the City Engineering Office-hired demolition team in the eviction of residents is reported to have forcibly pulled the girl from her mother after resisting to leave the families’ shack.
The mother said that her child, Maybeline Fronda, needs to undergo a possible surgical operation after the child undergo a CT-scan and an MRI examination. The girls’ face is reported to have swollen five days after the incident.
Frilyn, the mother, also accounted that representatives from the DSWD Valenzuela office have met with the family and donated P2,500 for the medication of the child.
“The amount does not even make half of the cost of the CT-scan procedure which costs P6,170. While the hospital charges us with P11,500 for the MRI procedure,” Frilyn complained.
Like other residents in the community, Maybeline’s parents do not have a regular income. Her parents has a sideline job in a nearby factory picking recyclable materials from waste collections. The job brings in a measly P600 income for the family every week. While the mother attends to her sick child in the hospital, the father has to remain at his work in order to feed the other three children.
Not criminals
Meanwhile, Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (KADAMAY), an urban poor group who aided the residents in their people’s barricade against demolition of homes, asked the local government of Valenzuela to shoulder the cost of the medication of the child.
KADAMAY said the local government unit of Valenzuela City has clearly violated a memorandum of agreement between people organizations and the Department of Interior and Local Government that there will be no forcible demolition in danger areas in the NCR without onsite or near-site relocation for the affected families.
Meanwhile, Valenzuela City Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian, in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said that the residents were victims of a squatting syndicate who extorted money from the residents as payment for the right to the land.
“It’s not enough reason for the authorities to treat these urban poor as criminals, for international covenants have ensures them their right for adequate housing,” said Carlito Badion, KADAMAY national secretary-general.
DSWD, CHR role in demolition, questioned
“We call on the attention of other agencies especially the DWSD and the Commission on Human Rights who were involved in the eviction of residents to assess how they played their role in the demolition of urban poor communities,” said Badion.
“More often than not, the urban poor have treated them as part of the demolition team and not as agencies that will ensure their welfare and human rights, as in the case in the demolition in Barangay Bignay,” Badion said.
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