DAVAO CITY—The Quick Response Team on Children’s Concerns here rescued another victim of child abuse after the biological father of a six-year-old boy mauled his only son using an electric wire.
The boy was full of bruises and wounds when the QRTCC team rescued him around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, after a concerned citizen informed them through the so-called Kean Gabriel hotline—named after a three-year-old who was killed by his stepfather in this city last year.
The QRTCC and police arrested the father of the child, who was present during the group’s rescue operation.
Social Worker Teresita Obang said the child was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pajamas when the group arrived, apparently to cover the bruises caused by his father’s mauling.
The boy’s mother, however, refused to file charges against her husband, but admitted it was not the first time the father hurt their only child.
Based on the mother’s testimony, her husband mauled the boy whenever he was drunk. However, she did not report it since she said the father “does not have any idea of what he has done to the child” afterward.
“At first, the mother was convinced of filing charges against her husband, but when we arrived at the police station she changed her mind. She said she does not have any idea how they will survive without her husband,” Obang said.
The QRTCC team found out the boy was no longer attending school, and was left alone in their house whenever his parents went out to work.
“According to the neighbors, they always left the kid alone, no one was taking care of him,” Obang said.
The six-year-old said he was beaten by his father because he took a shower in the rain.
“He beat me using an electric wire,” the child told the QRTCC team.
Lorna Mandin, head of the Integrated Gender and Development Division, said since the Kean Gabriel Hotline was launched last October, they have received 134 calls from concerned citizens to report cases of child abuse.
Nearly half or 46 percent of the reports were related to physical abuse, while 52 percent of the victims were male, Mandin said. Seven out of 10 cases were through the reports of concerned citizens.
“The data shows there are at least two children a day who experience abuse. It also shows the community is getting more involved by reporting such cases to our Kean Gabriel hotline,” she said.
Charges of physical injury in relation to Republic Act 7610 or the Anti-Child Abuse Law were filed against the father. Authorities were still determining whether to file charges against the mother, who did not report the incident.