Cops want to forget Joshua

How twisted can the Lapu-Lapu city police be in describing the drowning of 7-year-old Joshua Veloso as “accidental?”

The pupil wasn’t engaged in recreational swimming with friends when he was submerged near the shore of sitio Paraiso in barangay Buaya last Feb. 29.

He was chased into the water, taunted by young bullies who found him a convenient target for their aggression.

Even if the autopsy report showed no open wounds or other sign of injuries, the conclusion that his death was “accidental” is absurd.

The proximate cause of his death was “asphyxia by drowning,” as stated in the death certificate, but the primary cause of his death was sheer cruelty, a tragedy that cuts both ways because the violence against a minor was perpetrated by other minors.

Police said the witnesses they talked to, including two 11-year-old boys initially called in as suspects, insist they didn’t touch Joshua, that they were pestering Joshua’s companion, another boy.

Cowering in fear, holding on to a bamboo post of a footbridge, Joshua allegedly watched from a distance.

Joshua, who didn’t know how to swim, was there neck-deep in water. Was he there “accidentally”?

The grade 1 pupil should have come home in triumph that day, congratulated by his father, a jeepney driver, for the wonderful news that his school adviser had just told his mother: Joshua would be accelerated to grade 2.

Instead, the boy’s route home to sitio Saac took him past a band of out-of-school youths who didn’t let him get away.

Initial reports said the perpetrators were known in the neighborhood as the “Sandugo boys,” children of scavengers, left to their own devices. They were throwing coconut husks at Joshua and his companion.

An adult resident who watched the harassment said she reprimanded them, but was just ignored.

Cebu Daily News reported early witness accounts that Joshua was chased or pushed into the sea. One boy allegedly boxed him and forced his head underwater.

“We’ll conduct further investigation if witnesses show up,” said Senior Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas, police chief.

Lapu-Lapu police seem in such a hurry to close this case or erase it. They didn’t bother to submit proper documentation to the Department of Social Welfare when they turned over two boys held for questioning. In the referral letter, the case history was blank.

“We are at a loss. What should we do? There was no violation stated in the referral letter, no place, date and time of incident,” said social welfare assistant Mark Bao of DSWD.

He said it was the agency’s first time to get that kind of blank referral. With no paperwork, social workers had to let the boys go.

No counseling, no inquiry about parental supervision, no accountability.

If out-of-school troublemakers today end up youth crime gangs tomorrow, it’s not because the 2004 Juvenile Justice and Welfare Law is soft on minors.

It’s because adults in authority don’t care enough.