Kean Gabriel hotline only gets 25 legit calls out of 100

(From Pixabay)
(From Pixabay)

PRANK calls have been bombarding the City Government of Davao’s Kean Gabriel hotline for child abuse, according to the City Social Welfare Development Office (CSSDO) on Thursday, June 1.

During the iSpeak media forum, Jackie Roble, center head for the Quick Response Team for Children’s Concern/Kean Gabriel, said an estimate of only 25 calls are legitimate out of 100 calls they receive from January to March 2023.

Roble said they resort to blocking repeat callers without any real concern, otherwise, the prank callers or spam callers would take away the time to receive calls reporting about children’s concerns.

“Pero before namo i-block, gina-text namo na siya (We inform before we block the number). If in case naa sila nakita na pangabuso unya dili ka makasulod sa among hotline (they want to report an abuse but they can’t reach our hotline), that’s because they are blocked. Kung mag sige man gud ta mag receive og prank calls, ang legit calls dili nato matubag (If we keep on receiving prank calls, we won’t be able to answer those with real concerns),” she said.

Some of the prank calls the Kean Gabriel hotline receives include the caller not answering, parcel deliveries, and even loan applications.

“Lisod baya mag-explain na government hotline mi (it’s not easy to explain to people that we are a government hotline). Ang secondary number na ginahatag is ang Kean Gabriel hotline (Sometimes people list the hotline as a secondary number that’s why we have prank calls). Taga asa na sila, mostly taga lain munisipyo, dili Davao City (Most of them are not even from Davao City),” Roble added.

Despite this, the Quick Response Team for Children’s Concern/Kean Gabriel was still able to file 31 cases of child abuse concerns that were reported to the hotline from January to March 2023. Roble said the reports were validated and the children were immediately rescued.

Based on the data from CSWDO, 19 of them were physical abuse cases, eight are rape cases, and four were acts of lasciviousness. Most of the perpetrators were also close to the victims, such as their relatives or family members.

“Most of the perpetrators, nag-file ta og case (we’ve filed a case against them). Gamay ra ang nadakpan (Only a few have been apprehended) but we will ask help with the police kay sila man gyod ang apprehending officers. Ang priority namo is ma-assist ang bata maka-file og case (Our priority is to help the children file a case),” Roble said.

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