Inquirer files
MANILA, Philippines — At least one floor of a six-story building in Pasay City that once housed a Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) now serves as a shelter for the homeless.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had the space repurposed after the Pogo was shut down following a raid in October last year, where authorities found an alleged torture chamber, a sex den and other signs of the company being used for human trafficking and online scams.
The DSWD is currently occupying the second floor of the building at the corner of Williams and Harrison Streets, under an agreement it signed in May with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), the agency that led the raid.
READ: 2 Pogos raided in Pasay City; trafficking victims rescued
The floor now serves as a processing center for vagrants brought in from the streets and who the DSWD formally calls “families and individuals in street situations (FISS).”
The other floors are being used by three other government agencies—PAOCC, the Bureau of Immigration, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).
READ: Gov’t shuts down illegal hospital allegedly treating Pogo workers
The homeless people receiving aid at the building will eventually be brought back to their home provinces under the DSWD’s “Oplan Pag-Abot” program.
For sequestration
There are about 60 of them currently staying there and more are expected in the coming months, according to Social Welfare Undersecretary Edu Punay,
“The entire floor can accommodate up to 200 individuals. We renovated the rooms and the common areas to mirror our care facilities,” Punay told the Inquirer.
Aside from the processing area, the floor has made space for a clinic and a designated area for children.
Punay said the DSWD was now in the process of sequestering the property. He said there were provisions in Republic Act No. 10364, or the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, that allow the legal procedure for properties that had been used for human trafficking.
‘P30,000’ a month
Oplan Pag-Abot was launched last year to provide immediate assistance to street dwellers and help them eventually get back on their feet.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued Executive Order No. 52 on Jan. 18 to improve the capacity of social workers, community volunteers and the local governments for such interventions.
Citing information gathered by social workers who had interviewed rescued vagrants, Marilyn Moral, division chief of the DSWD’s Social Technology Bureau, said they could raise as much as P1,000 to P1,500 a day just begging in the streets—or an average of P30,000 a month.
The DSWD said it had managed to take 2,078 homeless persons off the streets in Metro Manila alone since March under “Oplan Pag-Abot.”