Bogo city police file raps of child abuse, trafficking
Canadian retiree has been a ‘family friend’ for 7 years, says kids’ grandma
In the small, humid jail, a 73-year-old Canadian kept his silence.
“No, no, I have nothing to say to you,” he told a reporter visiting the Bogo police detention cell yesterday.
Levis Caouette Talbot then stood up and retreated farther into his cell, out of view.
He has been detained there since Tuesday following his arrest in a local pension house where he had checked in Sunday.
The presence of four girls aged 9 to 11 who were “watching TV” in his company when Bogo police entered the room culminated in the filing of charges of violation of a special law on protection against child abuse and human trafficking.
Both sets of charges were filed yesterday by police with the Bogo City prosecutor’s office. An inquest proceeding is set for next week.
In the detention cell reserved for women, are the 27-year-old mother of one of the girls and her 63-year-old mother-in-law, whom police say were in collusion with the retired Canadian.
HELPING THE FAMILY
In tears, the grandmother, a resident of Bogo city, came to Talbot’s defense, saying he was a longtime family friend whom they have known since 2008.
The lola said the foreigner was falsely accused of a crime and was even helping the family rebuild their house, which was destroyed during supertyphoon Yolanda.
“I have a clean conscience,” she said in Cebuano.
“I couldn’t sell my granddaughters. I love them. I am so saddened by the wrong reports in the media,” she told CDN.
Talbot has been a regular visitor to their home, after he befriended the little girl’s mother several years ago. They reportedly met in a bank near their house in Bogo city and he took shelter in their house during a heavy downpour.
“Pagka human ato amo na siyang gi ila nga close family friend. Kung mosuroy man gani na siya ug Bogo City, ari na siya sa amoa matulog sa lantay,” the grandmother told Cebu Daily News.
(After that, he became a close family friend. When he would visit Bogo City, he would stay in our house and sleep on the bamboo bed.)
Police also learned that he would travel each year to Cebu and stay for several months in Bogo City before heading back to Canada.
After 2013’s typhoon Yolanda ruined the family’s concrete house, the Canadian had to find other lodgings.
“Mao to nga adto siya matulog sa didto (motel) kay guba naman among balay. Wala nay katulgan sa amoa,” the grandmother said.
She said Talbot has been helping them with the cost of rebuilding the house since January 2015 “pero sa pagpakaon ug skwela sa mga bata, ako na,” she said. (But the feeding and schooling of the children, I take care of that).
The lola said she was the family’s breadwinner, earning P200 a week as a house caretaker in Bogo because her son has been imprisoned in the city jail for four months on illegal drug charges.
DRUG HABIT
She blamed her daughter-in-law, who shares her jail cell, for calling in the police — out of spite, she said, because Talbot wouldn’t give her money to buy drugs.
“Nangayo lang siya (daughter-in-law) ug kwarta sa foreigner tungod sa iyang bisyo pero gihatagan siya ug P20 para pamasahe kay nakahibaw sa iyang bisyo. Walay kamatuoran nga gibaligya ang mga bata,” the grandmother said.
(She asked for money but the foreigner would only give her P20 for transportation fare because he knew about her vice. There’s no truth that the children were sold for sex.)
According to the lola, the whole family together with Talbot went out on a beach outing in Bogo City last April 6.
Her two granddaughters rode on the motorcycle owned by Talbot. After the outing, they were taken to the pension house, where they spent the night.
“Kay naglahi me ug sakay,” the grandmother said.
She said she sent her daughter-in-law to fetch the children that evening, but the girls’ mother failed to do so.
The Bogo police station chief told CDN the 27-year-old mother has previous police records of drug use. (The woman declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Her two daughters, aged 9 and 11, were found in the room with two other sisters aged 11 and 14 from the town of Consolacion.
It was not clear why the two other girls were in Talbot’s company, and whether their parents knew of their whereabouts.
Republic Act 7610, a special law for the protection of minors against abuse and exploitation, makes it unlawful for any person to accompany a minor to a hotel, motel, pension house, tourist resort or similar place unless they are relatives or have bonds recognized by law, custom or tradition.
The restriction applies to minors 12 years or younger, and those with an age gap of 10 years or more with the adult.
A six-year prison term and a P50,000 fine awaits violators.
CONFRONTATION
When police entered Talbot’s room on April 7, there was a confrontation.
While Talbot was “calm,” the mother who had asked police to rescue her daughters, slapped her 9-year-old daughter because the child didn’t want to go home with her.
That alerted the police that something was amiss. They later found out that the mother had consented to the girls’ staying with the foreigner.
The 67-year-old grandmother was also arrested because she knew about the children spending the night at the pension house.
The criminal complaints were submitted yesterday by PO3 Rosalie Arnoco and PO3 Mary Joy Ylanan to the prosecutor’s office in Bogo City but prosecutor Ivy Tejano was in Davao City for a seminar.
An inquest is expected to follow on Monday.
CUSTODY OF GIRLS
Bogo police chief Chief Inspector Richard Oliver said he’s been getting phone calls from the Canadian Embassy requesting for updates but there has been no direct intervention.
Talbot’s Philippine driver’s license states a postal address in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte.
His passport was not available, but according to police, Talbot, a retired freshwater environmentalist, is from Quebec, Canada.
The case has drawn the attention of the Cebu Provincial Women’s Commission, whose consultant Heddah Largo, and special operations officer Jedidah Sumignan visited the Bogo police yesterday.
“We will help in supporting the case against the accused. As of the moment, we want the children to be under the government’s custody so they won’t be unduly exposed,” she told the reporters.
The two girls from Bogo were entrusted to a relative, while the two girls from Consolacion town were returned to their parents.
Police said there is no center or facility to house children who are victims of crime or offenders in Bogo City.
Talbot’s arrest was Bogo City’s third case since February of male foreigners apprehended for allegedly abusing minors.
Talbot shares the detention cell with Australian national Stephen John Baker, 41, who was arrested in February.
The visiting 14-year-old daughter of Baker’s live-in partner complained that he sexually molested her at their residence in a subdivision in Bogo City. The mother herself is facing criminal charges because she allegedly coaxed her daughter to watch pornographic videos and let the foreigner have his way with her “as part of her training.”
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