INDIGENT VERSUS NEEDY
When I was working as a Director of PCSO, I realized that there is not much of a difference between an indigent person and a needy person, and as a matter of fact, the two could be one and the same. In theory, PCSO should only provide financial assistance to indigent persons, but how could we say no to needy persons who do not appear to be indigents? Applicants who ask for financial assistance from PCSO and who claim to be indigents are required to secure a Certificate of Indigency from their barangay chairman. Based on what I know however, most chairman would issue such certificates to almost anyone, knowing perhaps that most of their residents are needy, one way or the other. I happen to know a lot of people who are technically not indigents because they are earning some incomes and may even happen to have some savings. The problem is, they lose their means of income when they get sick, and they often have no choice but to spend their savings for their treatments. That is how they become practically needy, even if they would still appear to be affluent. Fortunately, the social workers of PCSO know their job very well, and somehow, they are able to sense that even if an applicant appears to be affluent, he or she might have become indigent already, because of the high costs of his or her treatments. As a matter of fact, they might have fallen below the poverty line already.
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JEEPNEY TRANSPORT COOPERATIVES
We hear so much about “jeepney consolidation” but I think that instead of focusing on that, we should focus on “cooperative formation”, and by that, I mean the formation or the strengthening of transport cooperatives. To me, that sounds like a cause-and-effect relationship, and by that, I mean that cooperativism should be the cause, and consolidation should be the effect. Long before the idea of “jeepney consolidation” came along, there are many transport cooperatives already, and many of them already own and operate jeepney units. As the saying goes, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”. And by that, I mean that we should have just encouraged the adoption of more jeepney units, but owned and managed by transport cooperatives. Strictly speaking, it does not even have to be transport coops at all, because it can just be any cooperative that is already selling all kinds of products and services, and all they have to do is to add jeepney operation as another service. That is so simple and easy to do, and any coop can do that. I am wondering why the jeepney drivers have to be forced to go into consolidation, if it is going to be profitable to them, meaning that they can make more money out of it. And if they can be offered friendly and affordable financing packages, there should be no need to force them also to buy in. but the good news is, many coops can afford to finance their own projects, if and when profitable.
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MAKING HOLLOW BLOCKS FROM CRUSHED GLASS BOTTLES
“From sand to sand” could be another version of “from dust to dust”. No, I am not talking about life after death, but the parallelism could be true if we could make new products from crushed glass bottles, including hollow blocks for building homes. That is so because glass bottles are essentially made from sand, and if these are crushed into small grains, these could become sand again, or something that looks like sand. Before globalization came along, it was very easy to recycle glass bottles, because most of the two-way glass bottles were made by the local manufacturers who needed to buy these back. When globalization happened, all kinds of glass bottles of all sizes entered the market, and the importers of these one-way containers had no need to buy them back. In the old days, used glass bottles were bought by the piece by the junk shops, but they can’t do that too much now, because most of the bottles are one-way. To solve that problem, I now propose that we should pass a law requiring the junk shops to buy used bottles by the kilo. I am sure that law will not be a burden for them, because they will make money from that. Buying back by the kilo may be a new idea, but crushing used glass bottles to turn them back to sand is not a new idea, as it is already being done in many other countries. One objection to this idea could be the electricity cost, but I think the power costs could be recovered through the sale of the finished products, including the new homes.
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JUVENILE DETENTION CENTERS
In theory, jails are for minor offenders with short sentences, and prisons are for major offenders with long sentences. Jails are usually run by local government, and prisons are run by the national government. But these definitions are almost always not exact, and the differences often get blurred here and there. More often than not, arrested suspects who are still waiting for hearings or sentencings are also placed in the jails, and they are usually mixed in with those who are already sentenced and are already convicted. There seems to be no problem with that if we are talking about adult inmates, but there are really big problems when we are talking about juvenile offenders. Also in theory, those who are still awaiting sentencing are really just detainees and are therefore not prisoners, strictly speaking that is. That could not be truer in the case of juveniles, who are technically just detainees, and are not prisoners. But the problem is, these juveniles are always mixed in with the adult detainees. While the obvious solution is to put up separate detention centers for the juveniles, what is really needed is a wholistic solution that should involve a complete ecosystem, and not just the simplistic putting up of physical buildings. For one, the mental health of these young people may already be a problem, and that is why the suicide rate among them is very high. Who should lead these wholistic efforts? Perhaps the DILG? Or the DOH? Or the DSWD?
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