Heartless!

Pinapaalis sa PCSO compound ang isang bahay-ampunan na nangangalaga ng mga batang may malubhang sakit. Depensa ng PCSO, dati pa nilang naabisuhan ang Child-haus para makahanap ng malilipatan. Hindi tuloy alam ng mga batang may sakit kung saan sila pupunta ngayong mawawalan sila ng tirahan. (Watch the video report of Henry Omaga Diaz)

IT BEHOOVES me why the PCSO management, first of all, wants to transfer to the more expensive, plush PICC, instead of staying at the Quezon Institute compound owned by the Phil. Tuberculosis Society. PCSO has always been about charity and helping those less fortunate; moving to the PICC is only helping itself and not the constituencies it is supposed to serve.

Secondly, if PCSO management feels that those kids in The CHILD Haus are not safe in those premises, then why not construct a shelter or buy a small building to house those kids? For those who don't know, The CHILD Haus serves as a temporary hospice or halfway home for indigent children from the provinces battling diseases like cancer. Those who have no place to stay in Metro Manila but who need life-saving treatment, are provided free home care at this place.

With the massive amounts of money PCSO has been raising from the sales of its lotto tickets, surely building a halfway home for those kids w/ cancer would not be difficult. I mean, surely this work at CHILD Haus is just as important as PCSO's current pet project, a milk feeding program.

My colleague and blogger Inday Espina Varona has written an impassioned plea to President Aquino to keep this halfway home open. Click scaRREdcat. If you agree with her, pls. forward a link to her blog to as many people as you can, and let your views on the subject be known. We need to shake things up in Malacañang and see that this matter is given utmost immediate attention.

(UPDATE): The follow up report of ABS-CBN is here. Apparently, The CHILD Haus was set up by the Ricky Reyes Foundation.