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Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Father ‘burned’ stomach of son with a flatiron
A father will face trial for allegedly burning his two-year-old son’s tummy with a flat iron.
A criminal complaint for child abuse was filed yesterday against Allan Alforque of Barangay Lahug, Cebu City before the Regional Trial Court.
Cebu City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon approved Assistant Prosecutor Roy Carrillo’s Dec. 12, 2005 resolution on the filing of the complaint.
An arrest warrant will be issued as soon as the case gets raffled. Bail is set at P80,000.
Last April 3, Alforque asked the prosecutor’s office to reconsider its decision and for a prosecutor conduct a clarificatory hearing to thresh the issues out.
“For what good is the (subsequent) verdict of acquittal if the accused, who has less in life, has already gone through the agony of public trial. To him, justice is meaningless,” read the motion that lawyer Enrique Rama prepared.
Sellon, still upon Carrillo’s recommendation, however denied it in an order dated May 18.
Alforque, in his counter-affidavit, said he never hurt the child and argued that the burn was sustained after the boy, while at play, tripped and fell unto the hot exhaust pipe of a neighbor’s motorcycle.
He accused the complainant, his ex-live-in partner, of filing the charge to obtain money from him.
In his motion for reconsideration, he expressed his willingness to undergo a polygraph exam.
The incident, according to the complaint of Josephine Garrido, happened sometime in July last year, while the boy was spending a few days with his father.
When he was returned, she said, she noticed the burn mark on the boy’s tummy and immediately confronted Alforque about it. Alforque, she said, gave her the “exhaust pipe” explanation.
She said she then asked her son about it and the two-year old boy “confided” to her about the incident.
She said Alforque came back the next month and sought permission to bring the boy to his Lahug home once more. This time, she refused and an argument ensued.
It was only then that she reported the matter to the PNP who facilitated the filing of the complaint.
Alforque, in his motion for reconsideration, had alleged that Garrido filed the charge to get money from him.
He said she had been asking money for some time, to the point of suggesting that he sell his house.
He denied that he did something or could do something to his son, recalling that he even took care of Garrido’s son from another man as his own before their breakup.
He submitted the affidavit of two neighbors—the motorcycle owner and an 11-year girl who was watching over the boy when the incident happened—in his defense.
The child witness said she and two of her brothers, aged seven and eight, had been playing with Alforque’s two-year-old boy when the accident happened. Being the eldest of the group, she was in charge.
She said they all clambered up a motorcycle that had recently been parked and, in so doing, the boy fell unto the exhaust pipe and singed himself.
The motorcycle owner, Rodolfo Dag-um, confirmed this.
Carrillo, in his order, however resolved to charge him in court anyway, saying the evidence were better left for a judge to rule on.
He also upheld the validity of the medical certificate issued by Dr. Naomi Poca, the government physician who examined the child and ruled that the injury was sustained through “non-accidental means.” (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 6, 2006 issue)
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