Manila mayor to sign pact to rehabilitate Manila Boys Town

MANILA, Philippines – Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim will sign an agreement with the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) for the rehabilitation of the Manila Boys Town (MBT) in Marikina in January next year. The PRA, headed by retired police general Eduardo Aglipay, earlier expressed its interest to help finance the rehabilitation of the city's primary residential care center. The PRA will aslo initiate efforts to provide conference and workshop rooms to make the MBT complex a venue for holding seminars and workshops for the city and other users. Lim recognizes the MBT as an institution that helps boys, especially those from poor families, learn good values that will easily let them get into mainstream society. Located in Parang, Marikina , the MBT was established in 1947 as a residential care center for Manila's poor boys aged 8 to 16. Aside from its Boys Home, the MBT includes a Girls Home for those aged 3 to 16, a Home for the Aged for those aged 60 years and older, and a Foundling Home for boys aged 3 to 7 years old. Boys Town currently has more than 500 wards, with the Home for the Aged having the most residents at 236. This is followed by Boys Home, with close to 150 wards. Male and female wards are allowed to stay at the complex until they finish high school. Aglipay has informed Manila Department of Social Welfare officer-in-charge Jay Dela Fuente that the PRA has sufficient funds to help upgraded the facilities of the MBT and also add a building to house the seminar and workshop rooms. Regarding alleged abuses and misuse of funds that were reported in the past, Lim said he would relieve anyone found to be involved in any irregularity or anomaly. "We will not allow anything of this nature to happen in Boy's Town," Lim said. "It has been our advocacy to provide quality public service that will benefit our constituents and nothing less." - GMANews.TV