The Home For Chldren of Lapu Lapu City Social Welfare office. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
A month after their rescue, 15 boys and girls who were invited by an Australian tourist to a Cordova town beach resort where they were photographed in lewd poses remain in protective custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
The parents have not been allowed to see their children until it is determined that it is safe to send the kids home.
Ermelita Degamo, head of Lapu-Lapu City’s social welfare office, said authorities are still assessing the involvement of the parents in the case of pornography and human trafficking filed against the foreigner.
Absent from school, the children will not fall too behind in their studies.
The center where they are staying offers the Alternative Learning System (ALS) in coordination with the city government and the Department of Education (Deped)-7.
“The kids have been staying here for a couple of weeks already. We can’t let them stop and sacrifice their studies while they are here at the center. They are following a module where teachers come here for scheduled classes,” said Degamo.
The children are undergoing psychosocial intervention such as dialog with peers, guided plays, home life system and custodial care.
“I can say that the kids are enjoying their stay here. At first, they insisted on going home but as they see other kids playing, they also play and forget about going home,” Degamo said. She said the children have become more sociable compared to the first days of their stay.
Degamo couldn’t give a time frame to complete the assessment. They plan to have a dialog with the parents, the Children’s Legal Bureau and other stakeholders.
Parents had tried to get their children out of the DSWD center but were prohibited from seeing the minors, until it is clarified whether the children were exposed to a sexual predator with the consent of their parents.
The manager of Cordova Home Village told the Provincial Board the other day that the resort staff didn’t notice anything amiss because the children were accompanied to the resort by their parents to attend what the management thought was a birthday party of the Cebuana girlfriend of a guest Peter James Robinson.
Robinson was arrested on June 24. He is set to be arraigned on charges of child pornography, and qualified human trafficking before the Regional Trial Court in Mandaue City. He chose not to file a counter-affidavit with the prosecutor’s office.
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