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Sunday, October 12, 2003
Child, 6, burned for her gold earrings
By Oscar C. Pineda
MAIMED, badly burned and left for dead over a pair of gold earrings, a six-year-old girl lived to tell her story.
She identified her attacker as her playmate's mother.
Two barangay tanods were relieving themselves in a grassy area in Sitio Kadugoy, Barangay Basak, Lapu-Lapu City when they heard a moaning child and found the victim, a rope tied tightly around her neck.
Homicide investigator SPO2 Rolito Jumao-as said the little girl, Jessa Jari Florito, suffered third-degree burns from the chest up, and her legs were broken. The back of her head looked like it had been hit by a hard object.
She was found 160 meters from her house Saturday morning.
On the way to the hospital, she managed to identify a neighbor, Robilyn Roble, 23, as her attacker.
Police said robbery is a possible motive because the suspect took the girl's gold earrings.
Tanods Mario Lato and Roberto Tumulak, who found Jessa, rushed her to the hospital and alerted the police.
Doctors at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City operated on Jessa's legs Saturday afternoon, about the same time the police invited Roble for questioning. Roble denied any involvement in the attack.
Jessa's mother Florenda, 33, hardly knows the suspect. They just nod at each other whenever they meet.
Like a torch
Florenda cried when her daughter told her, "Gihimo ko niyang suga (She lit me like a torch)." She had left Jessa and her two other children in the care of her in-laws while she went to work as a masseuse.
Jessa used to go to a day care center, but her mother stopped sending her there because the child sometimes suffers epileptic seizures.
When Florenda asked her daughter who was responsible for the attack, the girl said, "Si Auntie."
Florenda mentioned some names until the victim nodded at the mention of "Maryanne."
There are two Maryannes in their place. So Florenda asked her daughter, "Is it Marita, Maryanne's mother?" Her daughter said no.
After much prodding, Jessa identified the Maryanne she meant. "Is it Belen the mother of Maryanne?" Florenda asked. The girl nodded.
When asked further if the attacker was the wife of "Kasmot", Jessa nodded again.
Jessa always plays with Roble's daughter who is less than a year old.
At work
After getting the information, the police picked up the suspect.
During questioning, Roble said she was in her house since late that afternoon until evening.
When a younger sibling visited her in the cell, the two cried, Jumao-as said.
Florenda works at the Mactan therapeutic massage center in Barangay Poblacion. Her husband Rodualdo has been working in Boston, USA for four years.
Late Friday afternoon, Florenda left the victim and her other children -- Rimafe, 10, and Redeem, three years old -- with her sister-in-law Somayra Florito, 50, and father-in-law Alberto Florito, 67, before she went off to work until 3 a.m. Saturday.
Police fetched Florenda from work at 6 a.m. Saturday and took her to the hospital.
(October 12, 2003 issue)
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