PREVENTIVE MEASURES. Overseas Workers’ Welfare Agency XI Regional Director Eduardo Bellido says he is planning to craft a policy that will prevent mothers from leaving their young children in the hands of guardians in order to work abroad. Bellido’s comments came after a toddler from Calinan district in Davao City died due to beating by his guardians last week. (By Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The mother of the slain two-year old toddler who was found beaten to death by his guardians arrived on Saturday from Bahrain to bury her son.
Erlinda Cagalitan, the mother of John Earl who died last Nov. 15, also received P50,000 burial assistance from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, said Eduardo Bellido, OWWA’s regional director.
As government support for the family of the abused toddler came, Florie May Tacang, executive director of the nongovernmental Kaugmaon advised local village officials to include reports of abusive adults.
“The forms of child abuses against children have become very cruel, dangerous and barbaric,” she said.
Tacang said abuses against children are rooted from the thinking that children are properties “which can be equated to things without value.”
She also emphasized that the city’s “Kean Gabriel” child abuse hotline was only a mechanism to stop child abuse but not the solution to the problem of child abuse.
“What is still needed is to mainstream children’s rights, parent effectiveness orientation and install reporting mechanism of child abuse cases,” she said.
Juenalyn Pablo, Social Worker 1 of CSSDO and focal person of Kean Gabriel hotline, urged the cooperation of the community.
Pablo said a total of 22 child abuse have been reported after the child abuse hotline was launched last October 28.
The case of John Earl prompted OWWA to strengthen its coordination with DSWD, Department of Justice, Philippine Council for the Welfare of Children and all other child rights and women’s advocacy groups to intensify its campaign against child abuse.
“The coordination will be favorable to the OFW’s since most of them leave their children to their relatives,” he said.
OWWA’s Bellido said a training assistance would also be given to help Cagalitan provide the needs of her two remaining children.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development promised to conduct psycho-social counseling to Cagalitan and her children. (davaotoday.com)
