Cagayan Representative Jack Enrile has a suggestion to help keep the number of children going missing in Manila down: Be a nosy neighbor.
In a statement to the press, Enrile suggested organizing watchdog groups “composed of mothers who usually stay home” to keep an eye on kids in their barangays.
“Practically everyone knows the children in their neighborhood. A system can be devised to monitor, record and report their whereabouts,” he said.
He added the watchdog groups could also help barangay officials watch out for “suspicious-acting individuals who are not known in the neighborhood.”
Enrile is running for senator in the May elections under the United Nationalist Alliance.
Gabriela party-list Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan, in a separate statement, called on the National Capital Region Police Office to “ask malls to increase guards and cameras, issue advisories and warnings to parents and train bus conductors on the protocol regarding suspicious characters and distracted parents.”
Una ang Pamilya party-list Rep. Reena Concepcion Obillo meanwhile reminded parents that the primarily responsibility of keeping their children safe falls on them.
She said, though, that the NCRPO should increase police visibility. Police should also investigate “perpetrators and their modus operandi, where the abducted kids end up, and greater interdiction efforts on ransom attempts.”
Chief Superintendent Leonardo Espina, NCRPO director, said in a press conference last week that police do not believe a syndicate is to blame for children going missing.
“In 2012, we got 38 reports of missing persons. But not all of them can be called abductions, because out of the 38 cases, 36 were resolved and the victims were returned to the care of their parents. Some fled their houses while others strayed far while playing,” he said in an Inquirer report.
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Photo: Detail from Proverbs, Pieter Brueghel the Younger
