The Department of Social Welfare and Development and local government units were urged to prohibit children from begging and caroling in the streets to ensure their safety and prevent deaths and accidents.

In a news release sent to The News Today, Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said poverty forces these street kids to roam the dangerous streets to survive.

“Street children are forced by dire economic circumstances to beg or go caroling in the streets just so they can survive. We should exert every effort to keep them out of harm’s way,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said the DSWD and LGUs should take the appropriate steps to spare children “who are already economically hard up from taking grave risks out in the streets where they could be run over by speeding vehicles or meet some other unfortunate accident.”

He said the government and civic groups should work together to make these children live a normal lives and go to school.

Pimentel told the DSWD and LGUs to field teams that would help street children especially during the Christmas season “when they need to be shown more compassion and given more attention by the government, humanitarian groups and civic-minded individuals so they do not feel left out by mainstream society.”

REPORT THRU TWITTER

Meanwhile, DSWD secretary Dinky Soliman encouraged the public to help report sightings of street children in Metro Metro Manila through the DSWD Twitter account @savestreetkids (https://twitter.com/savestreetkids).

She said the children rescued will be brought to reception centers of LGUs and to DSWD-managed centers to determine their residence and to be provided with appropriate services and interventions.

Soliman, in a TV show Umagang Kay Ganda, discouraged the public to give alms to discourage the kids from begging, saying that some “syndicates” take advantage of the kids and Christmas to have a lucrative business.

Meanwhile, Soliman reminded parents to be responsible by taking care of their children, and ensuring that they get the physical, mental and emotional support that are due them.*