Thursday, July 24, 2008 Judge chides Bacolod’s ‘deplorable’ state of youth center By Gil Alfredo B. Severino
A Family Court Judge lamented on the "dirty, dilapidated and in the state of disrepair" of the city's youth rehabilitation center.
Judge Philadelfa Pagapong-Agraviador in a letter to Bacolod City Mayor Evelio Leonardia and Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue lamented on the poor state of the Social Development Center (SDC).
The SDC is the youth detention home established by the City of Bacolod housing not only minors in conflict with the law (CICL) but other minors who need to be housed in a facility because of the social problems they created.
Agraviador inspected the SDC last July 5.
The SDC is a two-storey house made of concrete materials and adjacent to the Barangay Taculing police office.
"The building itself is dirty, dilapidated and in the state of disrepair. (I) smelled the intolerable odor of unwashed bodies, unclean, leaking comfort rooms and unbathed children," she added.
The judge said, "Although the social worker... informed us that there were NGOs conducting educational and religious services, it was obvious that the center is not appropriate for the task assigned to it. The physical facility alone is deplorable."
"The atmosphere is not conducive to the development of any child, let alone maladjusted children. In a city that boasts of a P450-million government center and had recently won an award for the most friendly, (I) wonder why such condition exists at the SDC," she stressed.
“One might say that a city can only be true to its mandate when it takes care not only of the needs of the people who are outside the ambit of the law or who are free to go about their daily lives but also of those who are considered problems of the society. This is the underbelly or the weak point of the city which local executives should give more attention to,” the judge added.
She said she was informed of plans to rehabilitate the SDC or establish a new home for “problem children of the city” as well as the availability of P1-million to renovate the center.
“Several months had passed since these information was relayed but until this time, no renovation of the center has been done and no concrete plans are made as regards the establishment of a child-friendly youth rehabilitation center.”
Aside from SDC, Agraviador also visited Balay Pasilungan, which is a project of Soroptimist International, and is a sort of a safe house for trafficked women, victims of sexual abuse and other gender-related criminal cases. “The place, though small, was clean, well-kept and airy.”
