It’s a mother’s worst nightmare, and it all began for a Pasay City resident when she and her two children went out to buy “balut.”
A 31-year-old woman discovered on Wednesday that her 7-year-old son was killed and her 9-year-old daughter was sexually abused, a day after they disappeared not far from their house.
The police have arrested two suspects in neighboring Makati City based on descriptions given by the young girl, including a construction worker who admitted doing the depraved acts while high on drugs. The names of the victims and that of their mother were withheld because the case involved minors.
The woman said she lost sight of her children shortly after they left their house in a slum area on Gamban Street. She was buying balut (a duck egg delicacy) from a vendor on Evangelista Street around 9 p.m. Tuesday when the two children disappeared.
Her daughter was found wandering on the streets the next morning, sporting bruises on her face and with a horror story to tell.
According to city police chief Senior Supt. Rodolfo Lllorca, the girl claimed that two men approached her and her brother and offered to give them new cell phones and pairs of slippers.
The men then brought the children to “a hut,” where the girl said she was molested and her brother was strangled.
Llorca said the girl was able to escape and was later spotted on the street by a “Good Samaritan,” who then reported her to the police.
Using a nearby “pink footbridge” as a landmark, the girl led investigators around midday Wednesday to the railroad tracks along South Luzon Expressway in Barangay Bangkal, Makati City, where they found her brother’s bruised body.
The police arrested Rainier Arroyo, a worker staying in the construction site barracks near the spot where the boy’s body was found.
The girl pointed to him as one of the men who took her and her brother. Arroyo strongly denied the accusation.
Hours later, the police arrested Arroyo’s coworker, 20-year-old Anthony David, on Roxas Boulevard based on a tip from a caretaker of the construction site.
Also positively identified by the girl, David confessed to molesting her and strangling the boy with a belt to prevent him from screaming. He said he was then high on drugs.
Llorca said David had a record for being a member of the Sputnik street gang who was earlier charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition in Olongapo City.
The officer also noted that, according to the girl, “the men even bragged that she and her brother were not their only victims, that they had done the same thing to other children just for kicks (napagtripan lang).”
Arroyo and David were turned over to the Makati police to face charges of kidnapping with homicide and rape.