Ms. Liliosa Baltazar,
City Social Welfare Officer said during a press conference held
Wednesday at the Tacloban City Hall, that under the leadership of
Mayor Alfred Romualdez and First Councilor Cristina Gonzales-Romualdez
who is the chairperson for the Committee on Social Services, the
concerns of women and children are now being looked into.
The City Social
Welfare Officer said that she has worked with five City Mayors and it
is only now during the term of Mayor Alfred that the plight of women
and children in the city are really given priority importance.
The past weeks, the
City Social Welfare Office in partnership with the City Philippine
National Police, with Mayor Alfred and Hon. Cristina joining them, has
been conducting operations looking into the minors who are working in
videoke bars and internet cafes, vagrants and women and minors who are
working as sex workers.
Ms. Baltazar said that
for the period of January to July 2007, the City Social Welfare and
Development Office has already recorded and attended to twelve cases
of crimes against children, from rape, sexual abuse, sexual
harassment, trafficking and illegal recruitment. These children are in
the ages of 14-17.
In the same period, 45
cases of domestic violence have been attended to, Ms. Baltazar said.
At least seven of those cases involve battering of women. Domestic
violence is very critical because it develops trauma in children who
look up at their parents for security and protection. When they see
their father battering their mother physically, financially,
physically, these children are confused and they end up when they grow
older either as being battered or battering.
Of the 45 cases of
domestic violence, three women have been granted permanent protection
from their husbands, three have been given temporary protection and
four have been given barangay protection. The City SWD has answered 20
rescue cases.
On sexual workers, at
least nine are now being served by giving them training on livelihood
skills like manicure and pedicure, handicraft making and food
processing so that they will no longer go back to the sex trade. The
nine women who are now being served were present during the
conference, their ages ranging from 23 to 47, and one of them is eight
months on the family way.
The City government is
also looking into the problem on street children and working minors,
Ms. Baltazar said. In fact, the nightly operations also include the
violators of the minors curfew ordinance.
The City is seeing to
it that the Tacloban internet scandal will no longer be repeated
because it is not only demeaning to the City but also the citizens,
Ms. Baltazar stressed.
Ms. Baltazar
appealed to the barangays to implement the laws of the country and the
city ordinances so that women and children will truly be protected.
