h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I suppose it was just another of those bizarre snapshot moments that have marked our progress through the Philippines in the past three weeks or so. There we were slithering down a steep, deep-rutted, muddy track through the banana and palm tree forest in a pick-up truck with a Filipino priest, all of us singing along to a Beatles CD!

The day had started with farewells to our friends in Cebu and the short flight to Mindanao. There we were met by another friend, the young priest we had met a year previously in the UK. A tight schedule had been arranged for us so our exchange of greetings had to be squeezed in with a rough briefing on our way in the truck to our first appointment.

For most of this trip we have not known exactly what to expect at any of our visits and today’s was no exception. The City Government-controlled centre for minors was located in the grounds of the local hospital. We were ushered through rough barbed-wire gates into a bare earth compound, maybe the size of a football pitch, surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. Along one side there was a low concrete building with small, barred, unglazed windows. In the far corner, under a makeshift roof but otherwise open, was a tap on a stand-pipe and a smoke-blackened pot on a small wood fire on which we guessed they were cooking lunch.

Inside the building were three bare concrete rooms, each equally dark and depressing and in one were a couple of beds – far too few for the number of boys who appeared to be detained here. In another room two or three boys were sitting on the concrete floor watching a TV.

At the far end of the compound, in a ramshackle collection of huts, sat two elderly people. We learned that they had been taken from where they were living on the streets of the city and placed here. We thought that there situation here, apart from being inappropriate, was probably no better than they had left behind.

In another building to our horror we found a young girl, sitting on the bare concrete floor of a tiny cell, measuring perhaps 3’x6’ and containing absolutely nothing. The barred door at the other end of the cell was open but the girl sat staring blankly out through the wall of bars where we stood. She gave a weak smile but could make very little response when we spoke to her. On enquiry we learned that she was 17, mentally ill (“crazy”, they said) and pregnant. She was placed here by social workers who apparently had nowhere else to put her.

We found it hard to comprehend the poverty of resources which had resulted in the chaotic and seemingly random use of this already woefully inadequate facility.

We determined that there were 27 boys, that the youngest two were just 9 years old and most were under 18 although one was 24. We were told that his case was still on-going from when he was 13 and he had therefore been detained for 11 years! All who are under 15 are being detained in blatant disregard of the law.

Our interview with one member of staff did nothing to alter this dismal and depressing picture. We learned that he had been dismissed because he refused to go along with the corrupt practices in the engineering department and that his placement at this centre was a punishment. He had received no training other than a day seminar and was totally unprepared to work in this setting. It was painfully obvious that the sole object was that of containment.

There is soon to be a new building on another site to replace this one and the staff suggested that this would make things better. As long as the present ethos and lack of commitment to bring about change continue it is hard to see that the move will make the slightest difference.