Pa’s online plea for help for his ailing baby touches tattoo community, netizens’ hearts

Baby Peterson knocks on your hearts to help him survive and live a happy life. | Contributed Photo: Janjan Rentuma

Cebu City, Philippines— A father turned to the social media to appeal for assistance to help his premature baby survive.

Jan Jan Rentuma, 42, a Cebuano tattoo artist, posted last June 15, his call for help in launching a tattoo for a cause to help save his premature baby boy, Jan Peterson.

“Dear Tattoo Enthusiasts,

Meet baby Jan Peterson the latest addition to the Rentuma family. Jan Peterson was born via premature birth & has been in the hospital for 29 days and counting. My family & I are having difficulty coping up with the hospital bills we keep piling up as the days go by.

On this note, I would like to knock on your generous hearts to avail of my services. I am officially launching TATTOO FOR A CAUSE while I’m still in Cebu.

And to those who are willing to give financial assistance, you can have it deposited on this account Rodulfo Martin A. Rentuma jr, BDO account number.006360192003

Your help would be greatly appreciated and I will be forever indebted. Hope to see you @Southern Tattoo Shop located at the ground floor of Raintree mall across Jelly Citea.

God bless you.

Jan Rentuma

Tattooist” captioned Rentuma.

In an interview with CDN Digital, Rentuma shared that he decided to launch the tattoo for a cause because they could not anymore fund the hospital needs of their baby.

“The bill is now at P300,000 and that does not include the medical expenses, but I am still fighting by working and knocking on people’s heart to get a tattoo for me to help support my child,” he said.

Read more: Netizen gets fourth tattoo to help premature baby

A week after posting his plea for help he got by with the help of some of the tattoo artists and shops here in Cebu who also extended their help.

“Ang mga shop kay ronnei tattoo, crols tattoo, hb tattoo, inkfamous tattoo, walter vistel tattoo, yaninks tattoo boracay, and inksider cebu tattoo, nag pa event sila sa ilang shop nga in one day kung unsa ilang ma kita naa silay cut nga i hatag nako or ang uban o hatag og 50% discount para lang maka tabang sila thank you especially to Southern tattoo shop kung asa ko tig duty” he shared.

(The shops who helped out are Ronnie Tattoo, Crols Tattoo, HB Tattoo, Inkfamous Tattoo, Walter Vistel Tattoo, Yaninks Tattoo Boracay, Inksider Cebu Tattoo, who held an event in their respective shops wherein for that day they will be giving me a cut of their income. I would especially like to thank Southern Tattoo Shop allowing me to work in their shop.)

Rentuma, who has been based in Boracay since February thanked the tattoo community and for the netizens turned clients for hearing his plea and for helping him raised the money to fund the medical needs of baby Peterson.

As of today, he has gathered about P 20,000 and is still knocking on kind-hearted people to get inked by him to sustain the funds needed in the fast recovery of Baby Peterson.

Now, the post has reached 345 comments, 845 shares, and 1,100 reactions as of June 23 at 4:44 p.m. /dbs