A former chair of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) Regulatory Board for Social Workers has called on Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian to reconsider the decision to grant “Rose” an honorary title.
“Rose” is the woman who went viral after photos of her crawling out of a storm drain in Makati City circulated on social media last week.
The incident has prompted some Filipinos to share alleged past encounters of seeing people emerging from drainage systems.
ALSO READ: More claims of people in drains surface amid viral Makati image
Meanwhile, Rose was located by a team of social workers who were able to interview her following viral posts about her.
She arrived at the Department of Social Welfare and Development‘s Pag-abot Processing Center in Pasay City on May 29, and underwent assessment and DSWD intervention.
The DSWD said that Rose collects recyclable garbage and sells them for a living at junk shops, adding that she crawled to the drain after a small blade cutter she uses for her daily collection supposedly fell.
The photos showed her securing the item after retrieving it from the drainage.
The Makati police previously said Rose was believed to be a street dweller who was known to rest in a canal near the Makati Medical Center.
The DSWD said that she lived along a street in Pasong Tamo in the city for a year, but “persevered to earn and to be able to rent a space” where she could stay with her partner.
The agency said it will give her P80,000 in livelihood assistance in tranches to help her start a “sari-sari store,” which has been her dream.
DSWD spokesperson Irene Dumlao also said that Rose would undergo a seminar on financial literacy to help her manage her store’s earnings.
She was also reportedly given the role of an “honorary social worker” to help the agency reach out to individuals in similar street situations, so they too could receive government assistance.
“Tutulong si Rose. ‘Yung mga nakakasalamuha niya na kagaya niya ng sitwasyon, tutulungan niya kami na kumbinsihin sila na sumama dito sa Pag-Abot shelter para mabigyan ng tulong,” Gatchalian said last week.
The DSWD’s Pag-abot Center has been operating since 2023. It provides temporary shelter for people in street situations before helping them return to their hometowns, where they can rebuild their lives through various interventions under the Pag-abot Program.
Meanwhile, former PRC Regulatory Board for Social Workers chair Thelma Lee-Mendoza questioned the DSWD’s decision to name Rose an “honorary social worker,” calling it “unjustified.”
“Social workers engage in different kinds of life-saving, problem-solving interventions for, among others, victims of crises (earthquakes, typhoons,etc.), armed conflicts, physical and emotional abuse of children, women and the elderly, abandoned children, children in conflict with the law, drug abusers, and others in especially difficult circumstances (like victims of incest, rape, prostituted women, etc.),” she wrote on Facebook on Sunday, June 1.
“They are there in the mainstream of community life, helping and working with people confronted by social functioning problems. ‘Rose’ has offered to join the DSWD outreach program to find others in the same situation that she and her husband are in, but what has she done for her to be rewarded with the title of ‘Honorary Social Worker’?” Lee-Mendoza added.
“When is a person recognized and given the ‘Honorary___ ‘ title? Who gives it ? The Social Work Law (R.A. 4373, 1965) recognizes and defines social work as a profession,” she further said.
“The recognition of ‘Honorary Social Worker’ should be the judgment of professional social workers, i.e., from their established PRC (Professional Regulatory Commission)– accredited Philippine Association of Social Workers, Inc., and the National Association for Social Work Education, Inc.,” Lee-Mendoza added.
She concluded her open letter by urging that Rose’s honorary title be “withdrawn.”
“I am sure it will be appreciated by the 33,000 [plus] licensed social workers in the country, including your staff in the DSWD who are licensed social workers, if the ‘Honorary Social Worker’ award to ‘Rose’ is withdrawn,” Lee-Mendoza said.
Lee-Mendoza served as chair of the PRC Regulatory Board for Social Workers from 2000 to 2004. She was also a longtime professor of social work at the University of the Philippines Diliman’s College of Social Work and Community Development.
In an interview, Gatchalian revealed that when he assumed the post of social welfare secretary in 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gave him the marching order to “make sure that no Filipino is living in the streets.”
