Missing child found, reunited with family

Due to a Facebook post, and with the help of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), a missing child was found and reunited with her parents in Sibulan town of Negros Oriental after 12 years.

CHR-Negros Oriental special field investigator Jess Cañete said the mother, Cerila Lumotos saw her daughter, identified as Mary Grace, on Facebook prompting her to coordinate with CHR-Region 3 in Pampanga to get the lost child, who is now 24 years old.

Cerila, the mother, narrated to the CHR that 12 years ago, she went to Manila for treatment of her ailment and brought along Mary Grace with her, who was 12 years old at the time.

The mother and daughter stayed in the house of her son in Manila, where Mary Grace eventually went missing after going out of the house unnoticed.

Accounts of the fate of Mary Grace — bared after she was found— stated that personnel of the DSWD found her on the streets and was taken into the agency’s custody. After more than a year, a policeman and his wife took care of her. When the policeman died, the wife allegedly maltreated the girl who in turn escaped from the house.

While roaming with homeless children at the Luneta Park, a woman offered Mary Grace a job and she ended up in a beerhouse in Tarlac, where she worked by going out with male customers but for meager pay.

While at the beerhouse, a gay person offered Mary Grace another job but she ended up being a live-in partner of a security guard for six to eight years.

Results of the investigation conducted by Cañete showed that Mary Grace, during the most part of her “missing” years, was not just sexually abused but was also physically maltreated.