The mystery of little Ondoy

On the morning of September 27, a day after torrential rains from tropical storm “Ondoy" flooded a large part of Manila, local resident Arnold Bernardino found a wide-eyed toddler wandering in the higher grounds of Barangay Concepcion Uno in Marikina City. “What’s your name?" Bernardino asked the skinny boy, who was wearing a drenched shirt and was all by himself. “Who is your mother?" Bernardino asked again, but the boy remained quiet. Bernardino accompanied the toddler to churches, schools, and the barangay hall to search for his parents but nobody claimed the boy. Nobody even knew him.

After four hours, Bernardino decided to leave the boy in the house of barangay captain Teresita Daza. Since then, the Daza family and other villagers have been taking care of the toddler. They did not report the missing child to the Department of Social and Welfare Development (DSWD), for fear that the toddler would end up neglected in the government’s hands. "Maybe he is between two to three years old," said Josephine Daza, the daughter of the village leader. She kissed the child who silently sat on her lap and smiled warmly, obviously charmed by the quiet little boy. “We decided to call him Ondoy because we don’t know his name. He’s been with us for almost two weeks now but his parents have yet to claim him," Daza said. Report missing children to DSWD Delia Bauan, assistant director of DSWD for the National Capital Region, told GMANews.TV that her office has not received any report of cases of children who lost their parents or were orphaned because of the deluge from storm “Ondoy" as of October 7. She conceded that it was inevitable for some children to get separated from their parents when disasters strike primarily because of “taranta (confusion)," but did not discount the possibility that some parents also take advantage of disasters to abandon their offspring. “It is possible that some are using disasters to neglect their kids although that would be very hard to verify," Bauan said. She advised barangay officials and other people who come across missing children to immediately report to the DSWD as the government is better equipped to deal with the situation. “It is dangerous (to keep the child) because it’s not yours and for sure the parents are out there looking for it," she said. The DSWD is willing to allow the boy to stay under the care of his temporary guardians in the barangay until his parents are found, Bauan added. In a daze Little Ondoy does not have the grim face of a typhoon victim. Although he rarely talks, he smiles often and flutters his long eyelashes when people come up to him. His chocolate brown skin is free of scars, making the villagers wonder how he managed to survive the floodwaters that rose as high as the roof of houses, unscathed despite his small size. At first, he was aloof and was often in a daze, Daza recalled. Because he could hardly talk, the villagers found it hard to communicate with him. But eventually, he warmed up to the outpouring of love and care from the people in the barangay. “Wala sa kanya yung bakas ng bagyo. Tahimik yan pero masayahin. Laging ngumingiti atsaka nakakaintindi at sumusunod kaya tuwang-tuwa lahat dito sa kanya," Daza said. She said the community has refrained from calling little Ondoy an orphan, as nobody knows for sure if his parents perished in the storm. Nevertheless, the boy has captured their hearts so much that a lot of people have expressed interest in adopting him. One of them is barangay staff Fatima Davalos, 26, who has taken the child into her modest home. She has become so fond of little Ondoy that she even did some research on how she could adopt the boy, but was disappointed to learn about the government’s stringent requirements. The villagers say little Ondoy does not cry or look for his parents. Fatima says he still drinks milk from a baby bottle, but he also eats rice and loves junk food. The villagers have pooled funds for the boy’s upkeep, and provided him with clothes from the relief goods donated to evacuees. Trauma trigger Maria Esmeralda Macaspac, executive director of Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), said little Ondoy’s persistent silence could be his coping mechanism. It would be difficult to determine the extent of the disaster’s impact on the child because he does not even talk yet, she said. CRC is a non-governmental organization that promotes children’s rights and provides assistance to displaced children. It is also possible that little Ondoy was able to recover from the trauma of the floods because of the love and care he is getting from the Concepcion Uno community, Macaspac said. However, she warned the boy’s temporary caregivers not to put down their guard, because something could trigger the effects of the trauma anytime. Along with other people in Concepcion Uno who want to adopt the boy, Davalos said they have refrained from planning his future to avoid disappointment. They keep hoping that his parents would come back for him, “because that’s what normal parents do, you come back and look for your kid," Davalos said. Postscript On Tuesday, October 13, after the first version of this story was written, the boy’s father and his relatives finally turned up in the barangay to claim little Ondoy, whose real name is Joshua Jadion. He is turning three on October 18. According to the boy’s grandmother, with whom the boy was staying, they were rushing to get out of their house at the height of the storm when they accidentally lost little Joshua. The relatives came from Libis Street, one of the flooded areas in the village. The grandmother, whose son Ricky is the boy’s father, told Fatima that they did not inform the child’s parents the boy was lost in the flood until they had found him. They were relieved to find out that Fatima and her neighbors had taken good care of Joshua. Fatima admitted a slight pang when little Ondoy left her arms. “I was saddened of course but I cannot do anything. I have to return him (to his real parents)." Her only hope is for Joshua’s family to take care of him in the same loving way that the people of the barangay safeguarded him for two weeks after the flood.– GMANews.TV