Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Girl, 12, allegedly beaten by ma, tries to kill self
A 12-YEAR-OLD girl in Barangay Agus, Lapu-Lapu City reportedly tried to kill herself after her mother allegedly beat her up last Sunday night.
Virgilia dela Torre, 30, said she was shocked and terrified to see her daughter, a grade six pupil at the Agus Elementary School, hanging unconscious in their living room past 6 p.m.
But police and barangay officials are looking into the neighbors’ claim that de la Torre beat her daughter and choked her with a piece of cloth after the girl asked her for money to buy food.
“That never happened. A mother could never do that to her own child,” de la Torre said in Cebuano.
She said she was at the kitchen preparing dinner when she heard the victim fighting with her sibling.
“When I went to check on them, the two girls were pulling at each other’s hair. That’s why I got angry. And I didn’t play favorites since I spank both of them using a `lipak’ (a bamboo stick),” she said in Cebuano.
Afterwards, she asked the victim to buy salt from a store a few meters from their house.
After she was finished in the kitchen, de la Torre said she went to the living room to rest.
That was when she saw her daughter hanging from the ceiling, unconscious.
“I screamed out of fear. I then called an in-law for help. We gave my daughter mouth-to-mouth (resuscitation) until she regained consciousness,” de la Torre said.
Then they rushed the victim to the hospital.
She said her husband Raul was at work when the incident happened.
Aside from violations of the Child and Welfare Code of the Philippines, de la Torre can be held liable for violating Section 2, Article 10 of the Children’s Code of Lapu-Lapu City 2006, if the accusations against her are proven true.
The City’s Children’s Code punishes parents or guardians if they refuse to provide food, clothing or medicine to their children, even if they are illegitimate.
“Sugarol kono ning inahana, wala siguro ka-daug sa tong-its (the mother is reportedly a gambler and maybe she lost in a card game),” Barangay Captain Jovencio Lauron said.
The victim, though, did not bear any sign of being beaten when Sun.Star Cebu and a tanod visited her at the intensive care unit of the Mactan Doctors’ Hospital.
Sun.Star Cebu tried to interview her but she was too weak to talk.
“We have a report nga pirmi ni siyang bunalan (she would always get beaten). And at that time she reportedly had a misunderstanding with her other siblings, but we are now looking on the liability of the mother under the children’s protection act,” said Acting City Police Director Louie Oppus. (AIV)
