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Japanese father reunited with ‘beggar’ son in Manila


MANILA, Philippines — An eight-year-old boy who was forced by her destitute mother to beg in the streets of Manila has finally been reunited with his Japanese father, the Manila mayor’s office said on Friday. Mayor Alfredo S. Lim witnessed the reunion on Thursday afternoon of Hajimi Ito and his son Hikaru when the two were brought to the mayor's office by Chief Consul Kenji Endo of the Japanese Embassy. Hajimi, a cattle farmer in Hokkaido, Japan, came to Manila upon Consul Endo’s behest to fetch his son and be reunited with his two sisters after five years of separation. Father and son got separated when Hikaru’s mother, Melinda P. Ito, left their farming community in Japan and returned to the Philippines with the boy. The circumstances behind the couple’s separation were not clear, but according to City Hall, Melinda, a resident of the highly depressed Baseco Compound in Tondo, left the boy to beg in Quiapo after their shanty got burned and she no longer had any means to support him. Hikaru was found and recovered twice by the Manila Social Welfare while tearfully roaming the streets of Quiapo in search of his mother. The first time Hikaru was brought to the DSWD Reception and Action Center in June last year, Melinda came to claim him after presenting a passport and barangay certification in the absence of his birth certificate. A few days later, she again left him roaming the streets and was taken by barangay tanod Aristeo Catacutan of Barangay 410, Zone 42 in Manila after a concerned citizen, Isaias Butagay, found him crying in Quiapo area. Social welfare officers said Melinda could no longer be located since then. “When no one claimed him after some time, he was transferred to the Foundling Home of Boys Town — a facility operated and owned by the City of Manila. On Oct. 16, 2007 the DSWD sent a letter to the Japanese Embassy, which later called the Boys Town Complex to acknowledge the letter," said City Hall in its Web site. On March 4, 2008 Consul Endo visited Hikaru at Boys Town and assured him of the embassy’s assistance in locating his father. Hajimi subsequently came to Manila last April and met with Hikaru, but was asked to come again after the boy completes his six-month treatment for tuberculosis, said Mayor Lim on Friday. Lim said the reunited father and son flew to Japan on Thursday afternoon. According to City Hall, Hikaru’s case is just one in so many foreigners — young and old alike — who are roaming the streets of Manila. So do so by choice and others get lost and are afraid to ask for help from the locals. Mayor Lim said he has a standing instruction to the city’s social welfare officers to be on the lookout for foreigners — and other vagabonds — who roam the streets because they have no one to look after them. GMANews.TV
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