This according to Jackie Lou Roble, Center Head Quick Response Team for Children’s Concerns/ Kean Gabriel Hotline who bared that 75% of the calls are considered as prank calls or those who have no bearing to the function of the hotline.
Operational in 2016, the QRTCC hotline was created to receive reports of kids being abused and respond to these calls by rescuing the victims. It was named after Kean Gabriel Agustin, a 3-year-old child who died after being maltreated by his stepfather.
Put up by then Davao City Mayor now Vice President Sara Duterte the hotline is the city government’s initiative to prevent more Kean Gabriels.
Roble said many are prank calls, or those from riders who have pending delivery or the number was used by those taking out a loan.
“We just explain to them (prank callers) that we would like to drop the call so that only legitimate calls will be received and given action,” Roble said.
Of the legitimate calls the top cases are physical abuse cases being reported by concerned citizens. In 2016 they received 35 physical abuse cases, 2017- 194 cases, 2018- 213 cases, 2019- 104 cases, 2020- 88 cases, 2021- 22 cases, 2022- 72 cases and January to March 2023 they have 19 cases.
She said most of the reports were from citizens who personally witnessed the child being maltreated or chased by their parent armed with a sharp object.
After physical abuse cases they have neglected children as the second highest number of received calls and ranking third are rape cases followed by child custody cases.
“The Kean Gabriel hotline will automatically dispatch the team kauban ang atong kapulisan sa area(accompanied by our policeman to the area) to respond to the call,” Roble said.
After the validation we will rescue the child and we will put the kid in the quick response team temporary shelter, within two weeks we will process documents so we can transfer the child to another appropriate shelter,” Roble said.
The Kean Gabriel hotline is not just limited to calls within Davao City but can also receive calls from other municipalities even as far as Cavite.
Roble appealed to the public to only call the hotline number for legitimate issues so they can attend to real child abuse cases reported to them. The Kean Gabriel Hotline number is 0908-818-4444. (RGA/PIA-11)