Toddler snatched in QC reunited with parents

MANILA, Philippines - A boy who was abducted in his neighborhood in Quezon City was reunited with his parents yesterday.

A man who claimed to be Lovelio Mendoza’s father brought him to a slum area in Baclaran, Parañaque City Tuesday night and asked if anyone there would be willing to adopt the child for P5,000, said Quezon City Police District (QCPD) deputy director for administration Senior Superintendent Joel Pagdilao.

Mendoza, who is one year and seven months old, went missing Tuesday morning in Barangay San Antonio in Quezon City. 

“He (man peddling the boy) was claiming he could not support the child,” Superintendent Pedro Sanchez, commander of QCPD Station 2, told The STAR.

When no one would take the child, the man asked the couple if he could entrust the child with them. The man even asked for P1,200 he needed, supposedly for his trip to his hometown in Pangasinan.

“The man claimed he would return for the child and even left his picture,” Sanchez said.

Based on closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage obtained by The STAR, the child followed a man carrying a basin that had empty plastic bottles.

The child walked several blocks from the store where his mother was buying cell phone load credits. Eventually, the man and the child boarded a tricycle. 

It was not clear yet if the man peddling the boy was the same one who was seen with him before his abduction in Quezon City. Based on CCTV footage, the man who was with the boy had thick hair. The one who was peddling him in Baclaran had his head shaved. 

On Thursday night, the couple from Baclaran contacted the boy’s parents after hearing news about a missing child in Quezon City.

Before this, the boy’s parents had distributed copies of the boy’s photo and even uploaded them on social networking sites.

The couple from Baclaran was asked to check if the boy they had was the same as the one whose photo was on Facebook.

When they verified that it was indeed the same boy, the couple from Baclaran met with the boy’s parents at a fastfood store in Quezon City and returned the child. 

According to Pagdilao, the man who brought the child to Baclaran would still be the subject of follow-up investigation. QCPD director Senior Superintendent Richard Albano said the child did not bear any physical injuries.