BETTER MANAGEMENT OF FOSTER CARE

It appears that the government is not so serious about how our foster care system. Either that, or the government is not doing it the right way, and therefore we need to overhaul the whole system. Or perhaps it is the orientation that is wrong, because R.A. 10165 states that the purpose of the law is to strengthen and propagate foster care for “abused, abandoned and neglected and other children with special needs”. I am saying that the orientation is wrong, because in my understanding, the purpose of foster care is not only for the above reasons, but it is also for all children that are either orphaned or do not have a family home to live in, meaning that they need not be in such “problematic” situations as defined about. Based on available data as of 2015, there are less than two thousand children in the foster care system, being cared for by less than two thousand licensed foster care families. The lack of updated data is already a sign that the government is not paying enough to this social problem. Another indicator is that the government spent only a little over 40 million pesos from 2012 to 2015. I doubt if anyone knows the real numbers, I would say that the number of children that should be put into the foster care system could at least be one million, give or take. Looking ahead, the foster care system should be devolved to the local government units (LGUs). IKE SENERES/12-26-2023