Child taken from terminal found; abductor arrested

CEBU, Philippines - Police yesterday recovered the three-month-old child taken by a woman on November 2 at the Cebu South Bus Terminal where the child’s mother was selling goods.

Elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) traced the child, Lady Love Enriquez, and the abductor, Mary Jane Gomez Carizon, 24, at the boarding house of Carizon’s live-in partner at Cuyos Compound in Barangay Tayud, Liloan at past 6 p.m.

Senior Inspector Delfin Bontuyan, leader of the team that conducted the operation, said they traced Carizon with the help of a receipt from a money forwarding company. The company also furnished them Carizon’s photo that she handed over when she claimed the money sent to her.

At the boarding house in Liloan, Bontuyan said they had to cut the hammock off where the child was placed so they could get the girl when Carizon reacted violently, insisting that the child is hers.

The CIDG learned that Carizon took the child so she could have a baby to show her live-in partner. She bore her own child last October 31 but could not show the baby to her partner because the baby is reportedly suffering from a heart ailment. She reportedly left her with her mother.

On November 5, it was Lady Love she showed her partner.

Last night at the CIDG headquarters, the woman pleaded for forgiveness from the child’s mother, Maricel Enriquez, but to no avail. 

The child’s mother, Maricel, said earlier that it was the first time she met Carizon at the terminal on November 2, she entrusted the child to her because she was also busy attending to her goods.

Carizon is facing kidnapping charges. — (FREEMAN)