A Glimpse of Urban Poverty and Other Basic Problems in Bacolod City

Dole-out social services.

The Leonardia administration reported that from June 2005 to June 2007, the city spent P68 million (P32 million in 2005-2006 and P36 million in 2006-2007) in various social services.

A scrutiny of CSSD (City Social Services Department) projects, however, reveals that most of these “services” were dole-outs: relief services, one-time trainings, meetings and conferences, and printing and publications of materials.

More revealing is the fact that CSSD services went mostly to constituents of the political forces and allies of the Mayor and others in the city leadership. Thus the problem of effectively measuring the impact of these services arose.

Class A city with no hospital.

The Leonardia administration has until now failed to set up a hospital of its own, and is relying for almost everything on its excessively undermanned, poorly equipped City Health Office, which is housed in a small building.

The City Health Office has been catering mainly to first-aid and primary cases, while the rest, especially major medical cases are referred to the Bacolod-based Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital (CLMMRH), or profit-seeking private hospitals.

According to CLMMRH official sources, 75-80 percent of its patients are from Bacolod City, but support from the city government is quite minimal: a few dozen nurses and midwives, and half a dozen doctors rendering part time services.

Ironically, many ask, where do the millions being allocated yearly for health concerns by the city, and the millions more in donations from various local and international humanitarian foundations go? An accounting of the funds is being asked but no report has been made public yet.

What is even more ironic is the fact that the city government has been spending millions on salaries of 199 City Health Office personnel whose presence is hardly felt even in the city’s most depressed and disease-stricken barangays.

Crime surge.

No less than the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce, Inc. had once noted the crime surge in the city, pointing to the rising incidence of holdups, robberies, and numerous petty crimes such as snatching in the capital city.

MBCCI vice-president for external affairs Oscar Zayco noted in one media interview that a crime against persons and property have surged in recent months with incidents averaging three to four times a week.

Bacolod City Police Director S/Supt. Ronilo Quebrar also admitted that criminals in the city have not only increased and become more daring in carrying out their illegal activities, but seem to find it easier to stage their crimes.

He attributed the problem though to the city’s lack of police personnel. The city’s police force numbers only 473, thus amounting to a ratio of one policeman for every 1,189 citizens. He said the ideal ratio for a big city like Bacolod is 1:500.

Zayco also believes that the lack in the police force is not the main reason but the grinding poverty stalking the whole sugarlandia, which causes the increase in the rate of rural-urban migration and thus the commission of all sorts of crimes.

“As the city grows without much employment to offer, thousands of people flowing in supposedly to find ‘greener pastures’ here end up engaging in illegal activities just to survive; the city of Bacolod has become a mixture of ‘highly mobile and transient’ people which makes it harder for urban authorities to monitor and control the population,” Zayco noted. (Bulatlat.com)