Magpale on police probes: Let psychologist assist minors

CEBU, Philippines - Board Member Agnes Magpale is requesting the Cebu Provincial Police Office to provide a well-trained psychologist and/or psychiatrist to assist minors who are called to help identify suspects during investigations.

Magpale said minor witnesses who are subjected to the rigorous process of criminal investigation are allegedly often taken for granted such that no psychologist or psychiatrist is present to help counsel the children in the process.

“There must be adopted a standard procedure in handling these minors to prevent them from being victims themselves of psychological trauma,” Magpale said.

She said adopting a standard procedure as a safety measure will benefit the investigation and protect the right of children “from harrowing emotional and psychological experience inimical to their well-being.”

Recently, three children became the center of attention after they claimed they saw the foreign national and Filipina who lured six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique into their car last February 8. The incident happened outside the Calajo-an Elementary School in Minglanilla.

Pique never returned home since that day and a few days later, her body was found down a roadside ravine wrapped in a white bed sheet.

Norwegian national Sven-Erik Berger and his Filipina fiancée were tagged as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of the child.

The use of child-witnesses as the sole evidence pointing to the couple has opened the Cebu police to questions about the lack of protocol in handling minors in criminal investigation and the absence of a trained social worker to handle the minor witnesses.

Magpale herself suspects that case involves child trafficking because of the involvement of a Caucasian male and another woman.

Magpale, chairperson of the PB committee on women and children, already asked the Children’s Legal Bureau to look into the case. — (FREEMAN)