As typhoon Ondoy’s rains fell and floodwaters rose, a mechanic who was allowed to stay overnight in his employer’s house was doing everything but being grateful. He was doing the opposite, the unthinkable. He was molesting the six- and seven-year-old daughters of the good Samaritan.

When the girls were being treated at PGH’s Child Protection Unit, the pediatrician examining them was shocked to learn that there was a third victim of the same mechanic, the girls’nine-year-old cousin.

This story brings out other facts as shared by Dr. Bernadette Madrid, executive director of the CPU network, with 30 chapters nationwide:

* Children are more vulnerable to abuse during natural calamities and manmade disasters.
* Each year 1,000 cases are reported by CPU-PGH. The most vulnerable are those aged between 13 and 15. In the last nine months, 648 sexual abuse and 87 physical abuse victims were reported.
* 90% of abusers are known to their victims, 31 percent are relatives and 69% extra-familial.

Dr. Madrid gives credit to grandmothers as the children’s first and last lines of defense. The mother may be in denial or abroad. In any case, the grandmother seems to be the most earnestly motivated in pursuing charges against the molester until, with the help of CPU lawyers, he is locked up in jail.

Parents who want to protect their babies from predators within or outside the family could install closed-circuit TV cameras at home or heed the counsel of a Scotland Yard detective: “You don’t leave your wallet lying around, do you? Same thing with your kids. Keep them safe by being around them all the time.”

Dr. Madrid adds: “The most ‘trusted’ persons that you should not trust are the family driver and the maid.”