Break the change of Poverty.
The Childrens of garbage pit.
Fr. Shay Cullen
22 May 2015
This is week to think about hardship of the poor the most vulnerable are the children of the streets and abandoned.
Refugees have lost everything travel to escape hopeless poverty . We are called upon to share the riches of this word with all who suffer deprivation and poverty.
Cebu, Philippines.
The little girl and her friend were lying sleeping along the street in Fuente district ,Cebu infront of a 7/11 that Easter Sunday night 5 April 2015 ,They had been begging for food in a city of wealth and prosperity .But street children see none of it, they are the children of the garbage ,throwaway children that live begging or scavenging on the streets or in the garbage dump.
That sacred Sunday night when Christian are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth Chastity Mirables , a 11 year old street child and her friend ,11 year old (call her Miriam) were starting their passion and “crucifixion”.
As Miriam later described it ,a policeman from Station 2 Fuente Osmena under the command of Chief Inspector Wildemar Tiu, came up to the sleeping children kicked Chastity in face and dragged her and Miriam to a police van.
There was no justification for this whatsoever and the children were brought to the Fuente police station and allegedly beaten up in the present of several police men . Chastity was, according to the testimony of Miriam, tortured with electricity as reported by the city social workers later.
The children were so battered that they could hardly walk, The next day they were allegedly kicked out of the police station but chastity could not walk and Miriam carried her on her back. Were they sexually abused is an open question and the investigators have released no report or evidence to rule it out.
Miriam carried chastity to the hovel where Chastity’s handicapped mother was, later that day Chastity Mirabilis died from her injuries. The next day 6 April , three more children were picked up brought to the same police station and were allegedly subjected to verbal and psychological abuse and the police shaved off their hair. This is a humiliation and criminalization of children. They were detained in a prison cell with male adult prisoners. They were not fed proper food. It is not known if they were victims of sexual abuse in the police station.
NBI 7 assistant director Augusto Isidero admitted that the child Miriam was able to identify the policemen from photographs who beat them and physically abused them. He told me over the phone that murder charges will be filed against the policemen. Chief Inspector Wildemar Tiu immediately took a flight to the United States where many a suspect lives in luxury. He must have a green card, or multiple reentry visa. Getting a tourist visa to the United States is a long procedure. Will justice ever be done we can ask and wonder if the state will really prosecute police over a what they have until now considered a worthless street child .So worthless they allow them to sleep on the streets and scavenge in their garbage dumps. They allow it because they see the children as worthless garbage.
For the authorities Chastity and countless more are worthless street children. If not so why are then not in clean homes with good food and education as the children of the nation with equal right under the constitution. The politicians, leaders that create such criminal inequality and poverty are equally guilty of the suffering of the children.
They are the children of the garbage pit, savaging in the dirt and garbage of the rich ,seeking scraps of food to eat, bits of metal and plastic they can sell and
always working on day and night as hard and as long as the adults. They endure it as there lot , born in to poverty they can only feel the slight envy and longing to eat in a Jollibee restaurant. Many are nobody’s children they are the garbage pickers of Cebu and every other city that has no concern, compassion or the time to give to their needs.
These are the hungry scavengers dressed in smelly rags ,faces and limbs smeared with dirt from the burning trash. Their lives at great risk for bacteria,disease inhalation of smoke and the skin diseases associated with malnutrition.They look gaunt and skeletal, ribs procuring on those who are the weakest and can’t collect enough to eat. The adults are weary to the bone, sick to the heart with the poverty and the live in tiny hovels made of sacking .Thousands live like this in a nation of great wealth and ignorant apathy.
To be rich in this county of such poverty is something to be ashamed of in a person of sensibility but even that is and children will have no future beyond that of the next generation of scavengers .They are doomed despite the well intentioned helpers and volunteers that try ot ease there pain and suffering.
They are true Filipino people, with rights and dignity despite the attitude racist attitude that they are dirty useless and that has been trampled and smeared with the treated like garbage too.
shaycullen@gmail.com
